Padding the numbers

Desperate to claim anything as an Obamacare “success” story, the Obama administration has bragged that the law added nearly 4 million people to Medicaid. There’s just one problem with this claim: The administration is counting people added to Medicaid as Obamacare “successes” even in states that did not expand Medicaid under Obamacare, including Oklahoma. Writing at Real Clear Politics, Sean Trende notes that only about 1.9 million enrollments occurred in states that actually expanded Medicaid — and even many of those people may not be Obamacare beneficiaries because federal records don’t distinguish between those eligible due to expansion and those eligible under prior standards. As with so much this administration says about its signature legislative accomplishment, the Medicaid numbers are misleading at best. Still, it’s funny that the Obama administration is so desperate that officials are now touting Oklahoma’s non-expanded Medicaid program as an Obamacare “success” story.