New HHS brief tempers enrollment expectations five days before Obamacare kicks off again

The Obama administration on Monday significantly scaled down expectations for the health care law’s second round of enrollment, a move that is sure to draw fire from Republican opponents who have accused the administration of tweaking the law and its barometers for success too many times.

A brief released by the Health and Human Services estimated that 9 to 9.9 million people would be enrolled in coverage from the health exchanges in 2015. Yet congressional scorekeepers had estimated that 13 million people would be enrolled in the marketplace last year.

The administration has been reluctant to declare a firm enrollment target for the sign-up period that begins Saturday and will end Feb. 15, although the Congressional Budget Office’s projections had been used as the go-to standard since the reforms launched in earnest last fall.

For its assessment, HHS projected that existing customers would retain coverage at a rate of 83 percent, or 5.9 million of the 7.1 million existing customers.

It then examined the share of households that could seek insurance on the marketplace, and whether they qualified for subsidies. It then calculated likely enrollment for the coming year, in party by relying on trends they saw during the first round of sign-ups.

HHS reiterated that the Affordable Care Act’s main goal is to cut the ranks of the uninsured, and that marketplace enrollment is “just one means to that end.”

“In practice, reducing the uninsured will be achieved through a combination of Marketplace retention, new Marketplace enrollment, increases in Medicaid enrollment, and continued support for a robust system of employer-sponsored insurance,” the brief said. “Thus, we will measure our success by whether we are making continued progress in reducing the number of uninsured Americans.”