It’s a deafening silence as far as ObamaCare enrollment numbers are concerned. Erika Johnsen points out at Hot Air:

During the initial open enrollment period, the Obama administration released monthly enrollment reports that — even if they were exasperatingly incomplete and/or doctored in what data they chose to reveal — gave us at least some sort of idea of what was going on with the president’s crowning legislative achievement. Now that the Obama administration has that alleged 8 million sing-ups number to tout, however, they evidently no longer feel the need to even keep up the pretense of releasing regular reports on the law’s progress. As Politico reports (paywall):

The Obama administration has quietly decided to halt its monthly updates on Obamacare enrollment, which were a major pipeline of information about the impact of the health law heading into the 2014 campaign season. ‘HHS issued monthly enrollment reports during the first marketplace open enrollment period in order to provide the best understanding of enrollment activities as it was taking place,’ an HHS spokeswoman emailed. ‘Now that this time period has ended, we will look at future opportunities to share information about the marketplace that is reliable and accurate over time as further analysis can be done but we do not anticipate monthly reports.’ The agency offered no information about the timing or level of detail in any future updates.

Yes, the initial open enrollment period is over, but people can still sign up for health insurance through the exchanges if they experience a qualifying “life event” (job loss, new baby, etc.). That means that the number of the ObamaCare-insured could continue to rise throughout the year, but people can also still drop their newfound health insurance at any time for any number of reasons — meaning that the number could fall, too.

Silence, in this case, is not golden. ObamaCare is in a hole and keeps digging.

Hat tip: Ed Lasky