The Washington Post asks something I've been wondering for a year now...

This afternoon I was contacted by Erik Wemple, a writer for the Washington Post, to discuss a story about the elusive enrollment data from the HHS Dept. Yes, Sec. Burwell did give out some general First Day metrics on Sunday morning: 500K people logging on, 100K submitting applications. However, that's not the key number that people (including myself, of course) are most interested in.

Unfortunately, I was on the other line at the time (with someone from a different media outlet, as it happens), and I had to pick my kid up from school after that, and wasn't able to get back to the Wemple in time. I guess he had a tight deadline to meet, because shortly thereafter, his story ran:

Those disclosures are fine as far as they go. But Bloomberg health-care reporter Alex Wayne suggests that the data release follow a more systematic format:

Massachusetts is issuing daily updates on traffic at its #Obamacare exchange. http://HealthCare.Gov can't do this because ... umm ... hrm.

— Alex Wayne (@aawayne) November 18, 2014

I'm rather bummed that I missed his call; this particular story was not only exactly the right ACA-related story to ask me about, it's the entire reason this website exists. If the HHS Dept. (and the state exchanges) had just done what Massachusetts is doing this year in the first place, I never would have even started the ACASignups project in the first place. As I said over at Daily Kos way back on October 11, 2013:

Seriously, though, HHS should really start releasing the official (accurate) numbers of actual signups for all 50 states (or at the very least, the 36 states that they're responsible for) on a daily--or at least, weekly--basis. I don't care if it's a pitifully small number. 100,000? 10,000? 100? 10? Even if it's in single digits, release the damned numbers. Be upfront about it. Everyone knows by now how f***** up the website is, so be honest and just give out the accurate numbers as they come in.

Ah, well. Perhaps Secretary Burwell will put me out of a job yet.