20% to 30% of Those who have Signed Up for Obamacare Aren't Making Their Payments

Dan Mangan at CNBC reports:

[Consultant Robert Laszewski, president of Health Policy and Strategy Associates] and other health-insurance industry observers said they expect that nationwide about 20 percent of people who have selected Obamacare plans did not make their first month's premium payment, leaving them without insurance. Larger, publicly traded insurers told Laszewski that they are seeing rates approaching 30 percent unpaid, while smaller, newer insurers are seeing lower rates of around 15 percent, he said.

The number of unpaid policies is chipping away at the number of people actually enrolled. For example, if the 20 percent estimate for unpaid policies is correct, that means that total Obamacare enrollment by Feb. 1 is closer to 2.6 million than to 3.3 million.

"There is a lot of industry concern about how many people will actually pay," said Michael Mahoney, senior marketing vice president at Web-based insurance broker GoHealthInsurance. He said the best rate of payments by Obamacare sign-ups that he's aware of is "in the 90s," while the worst rate is so low, "I'd rather not say. ... It's really bad."

Those who are making payments are most likely to include those who need serious medical care, which is going to skew the cost of Obamacare far above estimates/