The True Impact

United States President Barack Obama delivers remarks at an Organizing for Action "Obamacare Summit" at the St. Regis Hotel in Washington, D.C., USA, on Monday, November 4, 2013. Credit: Ron Sachs / Pool via CNP Phot... United States President Barack Obama delivers remarks at an Organizing for Action "Obamacare Summit" at the St. Regis Hotel in Washington, D.C., USA, on Monday, November 4, 2013. Credit: Ron Sachs / Pool via CNP Photo by: Ron Sachs/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images MORE LESS
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The news is out: just under 27,000 people signed up for health care through Healthcare.gov in the first month. That’s a really, really low number. What’s equally striking to me is the other number: just under 80,000 additional sign-ups came through the state exchanges, for a total of just over 106,000.

Now, I believe roughly a third of the country’s population is in states with exchanges (14 states, including California and New York). Mainly the state sites have been working well, in tech terms. And that gives you a sense of the full impact of the botched launch of healthcare.gov. The functioning websites were able to sign up three times as many people from only one-third of the country’s population.

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