April 30, 2014.

Report: Two-Thirds of Insurance Exchange Enrollees Paid Premiums

"You are afraid," said O’Brien, watching his face, "that in another moment something is going to break. Your especial fear is that it will be your backbone. You have a vivid mental picture of the vertebrae snapping apart and the spinal fluid dripping out of them. That is what you are thinking, is it not, Winston?"

Around two-thirds of people who had picked insurance plans through HealthCare.gov paid their first month's premium by April 15, according to a report released Wednesday by Republican lawmakers using data from insurers.

Winston did not answer. O’Brien drew back the lever on the dial. The wave of pain receded almost as quickly as it had come.

The GOP-led House Energy and Commerce Committee asked for payment data from 160 health plans selling policies in the Affordable Care Act's federal insurance exchange. The committee's leaders said that responses showed that across the 36 states served by the federal exchange, 67% of people who had finished the sign-up process had made the premium payment to insurers and had been enrolled in coverage as of April 15.

"That was forty," said O’Brien. "You can see that the numbers on this dial run up to a hundred. Will you please remember, throughout our conversation, that I have it in my power to inflict pain on you at any moment and to whatever degree I choose? If you tell me any lies, or attempt to prevaricate in any way, or even fall below your usual level of intelligence, you will cry out with pain, instantly. Do you understand that?"

The proportion is lower than the rates some large individual insurers have released, though some of the time frames for those estimates vary.