Trump administration: Most Obamacare enrollment groups failed to meet their goal

The administration on Wednesday released its final list of grant recipients for Obamacare nonprofit “navigator” groups for 2018. The administration cut funding to the groups by roughly 40 percent for 2018 because of low enrollment signups.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services also posted a list of enrollment goals set by each navigator for 2017’s open enrollment, along with the actual enrollment figures.

Of the 98 navigators, only 16 made or exceeded those goals. Some came up woefully short, such as Great Plains Tribal Chairmen’s Health Board in South Dakota that had a goal of 2,000 people but only signed up one person.

The Beaufort County Black Chamber of Commerce also had a 15,000-enrollee goal but only signed up 83. A few navigators missed their projections by about a hundred or so people.

CMS announced earlier this year it was cutting back on navigator grant funding because of low signups.

Navigators got $62.5 million in federal grants in 2017 to enroll 81,426 people, the Trump administration said in a release. For 2018, navigators only got $36 million, and the funding was distributed based on their enrollment numbers for 2017.

Navigators have said their duties go well beyond signing up people for Obamacare. They include spending time helping people determine if they are eligible for Medicaid and picking a plan on the exchanges.

Critics and Democrats have charged that the navigator cuts, along with a 90 percent cut to Obamacare ad funding are part of a goal to “sabotage” Obamacare’s exchanges. They also point to President Trump’s prior statements of letting the law “implode.”

But Health and Human Services notes that the value should be judged on the results.

“Last year, the navigator program helped less than one percent of enrollees sign up for Obamacare at a cost of nearly $63 million,” said HHS Press Secretary Caitlin Oakley in a statement.