“Kathleen Sebelius Caught Lying” isn’t exactly a shocking headline anymore, but it is worth noting that the health and human services secretary and the administration will lie about very basic matters.

Take, for example, Sebelius’s statement before the House Energy and Commerce Committee about a week ago that “we do not have any reliable data around enrollment, which is why we haven’t given it to date,” in response to a question from Representative Lee Terry (R., Neb.).

Since the website launched, Sebelius and her staff at HHS have insisted that they could not say how many Americans had signed up for insurance plans under the exchange until after one month, a rather implausible claim. How could the site not have the ability to calculate that figure until mid-November?

The Washington Post, this morning:

According to one person with knowledge of the figures, slightly fewer than 40,000 people had selected a health plan as of last week. The figures are derived from reports that the government sends to each participating insurer early every evening , letting them know which customers have signed up that day. The figure was first reported Monday by the Wall Street Journal.

The Obama administration always had the figures. They just didn’t want to reveal them because they were embarrassingly low.