Following the Obama administration's announcement that 7.3 million Americans have enrolled in Obamacare, Fox News dishonestly spun the enrollment numbers as proof both of the law's failure and that the administration inflated its initial numbers. 

The September 18 announcement that 7.3 million Americans are enrolled in health insurance plans through the Obamacare exchanges incited a new wave of right-wing criticisms and accusations over the health care reform law.

On the September 22 edition of Special Report, Fox's chief national correspondent Jim Angle spun the enrollment numbers, reporting that “President Obama's repeated claims about enrollment in Obamacare are getting a significant downgrade,” pointing to “erosion” of 700,000 enrollments from the 8 million plans that had been selected by the end of open enrollment in April:

But the 7.3 million Americans enrolled not only suggests that approximately 90 percent of people who signed up paid their premiums, but is also “much higher than the 6 million that the Congressional Budget Office forecast would be covered this year.” The 7.3 million enrollees are also still higher than the CBO's earliest forecast of 7 million enrolled, before it revised its projection after the difficult launch of Healthcare.gov. 

As the LA Times pointed out, the enrollment numbers actually suggest “the vast majority of consumers who signed up for coverage this year stuck with it, contrary to warnings from critics of the law that millions would stop paying their premiums.”

And experts explain there are a variety of reasons for some Americans to have left the marketplace -- such as finding jobs that offer employer-based coverage, or getting married and becoming a dependent on a spouse's coverage. And such fluctuations are not surprising -- many Americans were expected to leave the marketplace as they qualified for government programs such as Medicare or Medicaid. 

Since going into effect, Obamacare has drastically reduced the nation's uninsured rate -- the largest reduction was for young adults, dropping from 19.8 percent in 2013 to just 14.9 percent in the first quarter of 2014. States that opted for the voluntary Medicaid expansion also saw a large drop from 18.4 percent to 15.7 percent. Since the marketplace open enrollment began, 8 million additional Americans have enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP -- a nearly 14 percent increase from the same period in 2013.