White House Press Secretary Jay Carney on Monday dismissed Sen. John Barrasso’s (R-WY) claim that the administration has been “cooking the books” on Obamacare sign-ups.
“If we were cooking the books, do you think we would have cooked them in October and November?” he asked at a press briefing. “We could have saved ourselves a lot of pain.”
Carney also compared those doubting the statistics on Obamacare enrollment to those who doubted public opinion polls during the 2012 election.
“We know we’re doing well when we get back to the ‘polls being wrong’, as we saw in late 2012, that the numbers could not possibly be real, but I will tell you they are real and people are signing up,” Carney said.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius also responded to Barrasso’s accusation on Monday.
“I think it’s unfortunate that again, people who are not very enthusiastic about having the law work, haven’t done any outreach to their constituents, haven’t given accurate information are now suggesting that the enormous interest in enrolling for health care is not existing,” she said.
