WHAT IF THEY ADOPTED A NATIONAL HEALTHCARE PROGRAM AND NOBODY SIGNED UP? (CONT’D): Paging Federal Obamacare Enrollees: Is Anybody Out There?

We’ve written before that critics of Obamacare shouldn’t put too much weight on early glitches and technical failures, but the problems may be even more extensive than we thought. Wonkblog states that reporters haven’t yet been able to locate a single person who has successfully signed up for coverage on the federal exchanges. . . .

Even Matt Yglesias, that erstwhile supporter of the ACA, who once wrote a post entitled “Obamacare Rollout Is Going to Be Like a Train Getting You to Your Destination in a Timely Manner,” is now saying that the launch was “an embarrassing failure.” On the other hand, Ygelsias also points out the irony in all this: if the GOP hadn’t pursued the shutdown, chances are the botched rollout will be front and center in every paper, and Obamacare would become even less popular. The GOP may have shot itself in the foot with its political strategy.

I think that’s just an excuse. I frankly doubt that the press would be playing up ObamaCare failures under any circumstances. And they did find that one guy who signed up, he just turned out to be an OFA volunteer. . . .