(sigh) Yup, here we go...#ObamaDentata is officially the next #Benghazi

Note: It seems that the mainstream healthcare media has decided to go with the far more boring and obvious "#dentalgate". One of the fringe benefits of being an amateur blogger instead of a professional journalist is that I get to use vaguely-NSFW terminology if I feel like it. So, unless anyone has an objection, I'm sticking with "#ObamaDentata" for now.

Note #2: The title is sarcasm, folks.

This Just In...

So we'll have a hearing Dec. 9 on both #GruberGate and #DentalGate. Get excited, healthcare reporters.

— Alex Wayne (@aawayne) November 21, 2014

A couple of interesting notes here as well: The actual number of double-counted dental plans, which was somewhere between 380K - 400K, turns out to be 393,000.

Alex Wayne said that with the double-counting the number was actually 7.37 million, which means that the correct QHP number as of 8/15/14 was actually 6,977,000. That's right, just 0.328571% shy of the "magic" 7 million number.

Why Tavenner gives 6.9 million as the corrected figure instead of 7.0 million (or 6.98 million) in this letter, I can't say, although I'd imagine that under the circumstances, she's decided it would be better to err on the side of caution, which is probably wise...

Oh, and by the way, as I said yesterday, regardless of whether the number was a mistake or not, 393,000 people having dental coverage is a good thing:

With #kynect in KY adult dental visits are up by more than a third, and 3,000 jobs have been created in core health care services in KY.

— kynectky (@kynectky) November 21, 2014