Not much time to post today, but remember all the fuss & bother about how the ACA was going to cause massive increases in healthcare spending? Yeah, about that...

Pretty much everyone was stunned to see Q1 GDP growth slashed to -2.9% from an earlier estimate of -1.0%.

The revision largely boils down to one thing: healthcare spending.

"Two thirds of the revision is in consumption, cut to +1.0% from +3.1%," said Pantheon Macroeconomics Ian Shepherdson. "Almost all of this huge hit is in the healthcare services component, cut to -1.4% from +9.1%."

According to the BEA, healthcare spending went from adding 1.01 percentage points to subtracting 0.16 from the headline GDP growth number.

"So much for the BEA's initial view that the start of Obamacare triggered a surge in spending on healthcare," said Shepherdon. "The press release offers no detail on what triggered this massive revision."

Yesterday I tore apart a rather idiotic story by Sharyl Attkisson at the Daily Signal in which she bullshits her way through various ACA numbers, culminating in a completely absurd "infographic" which I helpfully corrected for her (so far she has yet to thank me for the assist).

Today I see that Hannah Bleau of the Daily Caller picks up Attkisson's ball o' crap and runs with it. I really don't have time to do another takedown today, so instead I'll just present two screen shots.

The first is the headline itself:

Um...no, Ms. Bleau, there has been no survey released which has made any such claim whatsoever. The Kaiser Family Foundation survey you're referring to states that 57% of the people who enrolled in QHPs via the ACA exchanges were previously uninsured. That is, 57% of the 8.02 million people who enrolled via the exchanges, or around 4.6 million (or, if you subtract those who haven't paid their first premiums yet, around 4.1 million).

There's a TON of amazing news out of Oregon today, but I only had room for the most stunning one in the title above. Trust me, this is chock full 'o goodness:

For all the hits Oregon has taken over their website, they continue to calmly, quietly, manually add more and more people to their exchange rolls:

Medical enrollments through Cover Oregon: 315,825
Total private medical insurance enrollments through Cover Oregon 1: 89,744              

Oregon Health Plan enrollments through Cover Oregon: 226,081

Net private medical: 81,369
Net private dental: 15,461

This is a net increase of another 1,029 QHPs and another 14,151 Medicaid enrollees since June 12...or up 21,436 QHPs since the end of Open Enrollment on 4/19 (330 per day on average).

It's worth remembering that Oregon started the year with only about 559,000 uninsured people in the entire state. Add in the 128,434 "Fast Track" Medicaid enrollees and you have a whopping 444,000 people covered one way or the other.

(sigh) OK, I saw a reference to this piece of fiction from The Daily Signal (a front for the right-wing Heritage Foundation...you know, the same guys who pretty much created the Affordable Care Act in the first place, but later changed their tune when their own plan was implemented by a Black Democrat) earlier today, but wasn't planning on responding to it since a) I already have addressed pretty much every one of their BS claims as recently as yesterday and b) if I spent the time it took to rebut every piece of feces that comes across my line of sight, I'd likely have a shingles relapse as a result.

A second nice DC find today by contributor deaconblues; as he put it, "so much for the triple-digit increases predicted by the Republicans"...

The D.C. Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking received proposed health insurance plan rates to sell on the District of Columbia’s health insurance marketplace, DC Health Link, for plan year 2015.

Four major insurance companies – Aetna, CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, Kaiser Permanente and UnitedHealthcare – have proposed rates for individuals, families and small businesses.

 UnitedHealthcare proposed rate decreases of eight percent for all of their 2015 plans; Aetna and Kaiser Permanente proposed a mix of rate increases and decreases resulting in a slight overall net decrease for Aetna and a slight overall net increase for Kaiser; and CareFirst proposed rate increases for all plans. Most of the individual plans and all small business or “SHOP” plans reflect increases greater than 10 percent.

While that last item about CareFirst raising rates over 10% puts a damper on the good news, it may not be final:

When we last checked in with the DC exchange, I had to do an estimated breakdown between QHPs, SHOP and Medicaid enrollments of around 11,100, 14,200 and 22,700 respectively.

Today they released the actual totals, which are shoved around a bit from my estimates:

From October 1, 2013 to June 11, 2014, 48,188 people have enrolled through DC Health Link in private health plans or Medicaid:

•  11,582 people enrolled in private health plans through the DC Health Link individual and family marketplace;
•  23,008 people were determined eligible for Medicaid coverage through DC Health Link; and
•  13,598 people enrolled through the DC Health Link small business marketplace.

So, QHPs are about 600 higher than I thought, SHOP about 600 lower and Medicaid about 300 higher. Not bad!

Seriously, don't ACA opponents ever get tired of being wrong about...everything?

Hot off the presses...

PRINCETON, NJ -- Five percent of Americans report being newly insured in 2014. More than half of that group, or 2.8% of the total U.S. population, say they got their new insurance through the health exchanges that were open through mid-April.

These data are based on Gallup Daily tracking interviews with more than 31,000 adults conducted between April 15 and June 17. Those who say they have health insurance were asked if their policy was new for 2014, and if so, whether they obtained their policy through a state or federal health exchange or in some other way. The exchanges officially closed on March 31, although people who indicated they had begun the process prior to that date were allowed to continue to enroll through April 15.

So, let's see here. The Gallup poll only includes adults over 18, so...

My 8-year old son and his best friend, just walking down the sidewalk together.

Some moments are just too perfect.

Slowly but surely, Michigan looks like it may end up achieving 100% expansion enrollment by the end of the first year, an amazing accomplishment (especially considering that the GOP state legislature delayed the program by 3 months for absolutely no reason whatsoever, financial or otherwise):

Healthy Michigan Plan Enrollment Statistics

Beneficiaries with Healthy Michigan Plan Coverage: 307,143
(Includes beneficiaries enrolled in health plans and beneficiaries not required to enroll in a health plan.)

*Statistics as of June 23, 2014 
*Updated every Monday at 3 p.m.

Last night, Jonathan Chait of New York Magazine posted a great story entitled "Republicans Finally Admit Why they Really Hate Obamacare".

For the most part, it lays out the major anti-ACA talking points (No One is Signing Up; the Policies are Too Expensive; But How Many Were Previously Uninsured?, There Won't Be Enough Competition, etc.), followed by the reality which has sliced through each of them, one by one like Toad's "List of Things to Do Today". To be perfectly honest, I was a bit surprised that he didn't bother including the chestnuts which have been disproven in the most spectacular fashion: The "But How Many Have PAID???" and "OMG!! 5MM Policies Cancelled!!" memes. Anyway, it's a good piece, and he concludes it as follows: