In perhaps the most nauseating way to put a positive light on the poor ObamaCare enrollment numbers, Time’s Kate Pickert claimed that a “huge surge in Obamacare enrollment” occurred at the close of last year. In what could have been described as an Obama press release, the Time “Swampland” blog spun so hard for the president’s health care law, Press Secretary Jay Carney couldn't do any better.
Pickert began her “article” by cheering on the Obama administration, proclaiming that “As federal officials predicted, the flood of Americans trying to sign up for health insurance by the end of 2013 ended in a tidal wave.”
In what The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto has called the “worst ObamaCare puff piece” floating around in the liberal media, Pickert did her best to promote the lackluster enrollment in Healthcare.gov. The article was peppered with White House talking points and direct quotes from administration officials including the woman in charge of overseeing ObamaCare, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who was pleased by the surge, “Among young adults, the momentum was particularly strong.”
Only an Obama official would claim that an embarrassing 2.2 million enrollees, of which only 30% were aged 34 or younger, a “tidal wave” but Pickert’s piece is no better than a White House statement. After admitting that more young adults need to sign up to make ObamaCare solvent, Pickert then quotes another Obama official who argued that, “We expect an increase in the proportion of young adults” to sign up in 2014.
Pickert did briefly mention the “technical difficulties” facing the website and how the Spanish-language version of Healthcare.gov was “riddled with grammatical errors,” but the overall tone of the article showed the Time scribe's overwhelming support for ObamaCare. What's more, Pickert couldn't be bothered to mention the millions of Americans who have been dropped from the health insurance plans with which they were perfectly happy nor to address the still-roiling contraception mandate. Talking about how the Obama White House is bullying the Little Sisters of the Poor kind of ruins the celebratory mood, after all.
