White House press secretary Josh Earnest touted the rising individual-mandate penalties imposed on Americans who don’t have health insurance today, saying they will drive Obamacare enrollment this year.

“At least some of the people who would be subject to a penalty if they don’t sign up in this upcoming open-enrollment period are individuals who would be subjected to a penalty that is actually higher than the premiums that they would have to pay in order to get health-care coverage,” Earnest told reporters. “So it’s a pretty straightforward decision that people have to make now.”

His statement comes as premiums for Obamacare policies continue to rise, and many of the government-backed insurance co-ops established by the law to compete with private companies are collapsing.

Over half of the 23 non-profit health-insurance co-ops have now folded, with Michigan’s co-op becoming the 13th to announce its demise on Tuesday. According to the Koch-backed nonprofit group Freedom Partners, that raises the number of people who will lose their Obamacare policies to 764,500. And the policies that replace them will cost more, especially for those who don’t qualify for federal health-care subsidies.

“For people who are on the outside of subsidies, what had been a very expensive market has become even more expensive,” Kev Coleman, the head researcher at consumer-information site HealthPocket, said earlier this week.

— Joel Gehrke is a political reporter for National Review.

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