Krugman: The ACA Surge Blackout

[ProSense]

The ACA Surge Blackout

It’s not in itself that big a deal, but I’m somewhat amazed by what amounts to a de facto blackout by major news media on a developing story that’s really obvious if you read the invaluable Charles Gaba, or even the White House blog: a huge surge in Obamacare enrollments in the final days of the signup period. The print sources I read are still putting out basically downbeat reports about the ACA, with maybe a mention 10 paragraphs in that exchange enrollments passed the 6 million mark last week. I don’t watch cable news, but from what I hear it’s all still Malaysian airways.

In the end, I guess it won’t matter in a direct sense; the final number for year 1, which looks likely to be very close to the original 7 million projection, will eventually come out. But you wonder why news media that are happy to speculate about the 2016 election aren’t interested in at least putting out a heads-up about the strong possibility of a bombshell number next week.

And where I think this does matter is that it shows a persistent slant in much reporting toward emphasizing the negatives about health reform. The website woes were, and deserved to be, a big story; the quite amazing comeback somehow doesn’t fit the preferred narrative, and is being ignored — and this despite the fact that, as Gaba notes, it offers great visuals too.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/30/the-aca-surge-blackout