7 million mark. i would be surprised if they hit the 6 million mark. the 5 million mark the white house is putting out now is almost certainly an overstatement. it doesn t include people who have signed up but haven t enrolled by making the payment of the first month s premium. the 5 million number is an inflated number from the beginning. martha: one of the biggest elements here, that s why we have seen the push between pajama boy and between the ferns. they haven t given us a handle on how many of these are young, paying customers. the original estimate was they needed 40%. the last number put that at 25%. it would a proportion of young and healthys that wouldn t match what the administration needs. but that 25% number is somewhat
supposed to be the government s way saying you don t pay by march 31st we re going to make you pay. the consequences may be dire so you better sign up for this. look, the seven million target number was actually an economical class done by the white house. they figured that they needed seven million to enroll in obamacare and they needed a certain mix. so they felt that 7 million number would get them acrash the threshold where the thing would be workable the first year. so many unanswered questions as we point out here of, let s say the number is accurate, a little under four million, we don t know how many paid their first premiums paying into the system. we don t know what the demographic mix is. whether the young and healthys are really enrolling to this extent. last night michelle obama said on one of the late night shows, she said, young people are knuckleheads and therefore need obamacare and signing up for it. i think they re a little desperate on that score. that, bass sil
time to crunch the numbers this extension will be helpful. my one concern, for a lot of young people, we see this in education all the time, making decisions about financial aid and things that require money and significant life experiences they will not make that decision right away. my fear that crucial component, that crucial constituency they need pushing the deadline will make the decision a lot harder for them to make. that is my concern. if obamacare were so great as this administration constantly tells it is it should be selling itself. instead the administration spends 10 of millions of dollars and continue do this on a huge pr push on the young and healthys, so-called invincibles that they need to hold up the whole thing. we ve seen pajama boy. saw the mom jeans ad. richard simmons rising on the floor, trying to appeal to the young kids. as bass sill says, most people are economically rational.
how accurate they are, when she talks about sign-ups, does that mean who actually enrolled in obamacare by paying first month s premium? we don t really know the demographic mix. they re giving us some estimates but again they need young and healthys to sign up and they re telling us 25 to 28% of those signing up are in that age group. that is not nearly enough to uphold this thing and make it work and again how many of them have actually enrolled to the point where they re paying a first month s premium? we have yet to seen the numbers. jon: let me call up again the poll numbers ed henry was showing us from the white house regarding the president s handling of health care. only 38% say approve, 59% say they approve. as a democratic political consultant how do you fix that? the president derided fact people talking about the bad messaging on the bill, but the fact of the matter that messaging matters. to be honest with you i support
going to happen at this point. what they call adverse election if you don t have enough young and healthys to subsidize the older and the sicker in these exchanges the insurance are going to lose a ton of money. the numbers are way down the percentage of the young and healthy is so low if this continues there s no reason to think otherwise. the insurers are going to be out a huge amount of money. in the monstrosity called obamacare allows for your tax money and mine to bail out the insurance. i think it would be a good time for the gop to pass a one-line legislation repealing those two provisions in the bill that would be a moment of truth for