Entries in ESPN Bracket Challenge Surpass Obamacare Enrollments

More people have filled out the 2014 NCAA tournament bracket in the three days since it was unveiled on ESPN than have signed up for Obamacare on Healthcare.gov in the six months that the website, which has malfunctioned and been plagued with glitches, has been live.

Nearly 6.45 million people have filled brackets on ESPN.com since Sunday evening, when the tournament field was revealed. In six months since the launch of Healthcare.gov, five million people have registered for Obamacare, but not everyone has health insurance because nearly 20 percent may not have made any payments. 

In January, various outlets noted that at least 20 percent of those who registered for Obamacare have not paid yet, which means they actually do not have Obamacare.  

President Barack Obama has been using March Madness to push Obamacare, even going on Spanish-language sports talk radio shows to tell Hispanics that their family members who may be in the country illegally will not be deported by the “immigration people” if they Hispanics who are legally in the country sign up for Obamacare. The deadline to enroll for 2014 is March 31, and the White House, before issuing waiver upon waiver, had predicted at least 7 million Americans would sign up for Obamacare.

James Andrew Miller, who wrote the ESPN book, made the observation on Twitter.