New information from major health insurance companies shows that most Obamacare customers have paid their first month's premiums, evidence that undermines the right-wing media's attempts to discount the unexpectedly high number of Americans who have gained coverage under the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

On April 17, the President Obama announced that 8 million people had been enrolled for health care coverage through the ACA exchanges, exceeding previous White House predictions. Right-wing news outlets worked to downplay the health reform law's success by claiming that the numbers were inflated because some people had not yet paid their first premium.

As the enrollment period drew to a close, Fox's Chris Wallace had questioned the high enrollment numbers because he claimed “they still have no numbers for how many people have paid for coverage,” while Fox News hosts and radio personalities like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh even went as far as to claim the administration was “cooking the books” in order to inflate the number of enrollees. Fox News, The Blaze, and The Hill later trumpeted GOP data that was eventually acknowledged to be "incredibly rigged" to claim that only 67 percent of the total enrollees had completed the application process by submitting their first premium payment and that the numbers contradicted to the administration's announcement.

Contrary to these myths, new evidence from Bloomberg confirms what the White House has argued since the enrollment period ended -- insurance companies estimate that between 80 and 90 percent of people have paid their first premium:

Three large health insurers including WellPoint Inc. (WLP) and Aetna Inc. (AET) say that a high percentage of their new Obamacare customers are paying their first premiums, undermining a Republican criticism of enrollment in the program.

As many as 90 percent of WellPoint customers have paid their first premium by its due date, according to testimony the company prepared for a congressional hearing today. For Aetna, the payment is in the “low to mid-80 percent range,” the company said in its own testimony. Health Care Service Corp., which operates Blue Cross Blue Shield plans in five states including Texas, said that number is at least 83 percent.

As the president of Washington consulting firm Avalere Health told Bloomberg, “What you have here is very solid first year enrollment, no matter how you slice it.”