Yesterday, in an interview with NBC’s Chuck Todd, Obama addressed the problems caused by his incessantly-repeated pledge to the American public that “if you like your health care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what.”
As millions of Americans receive cancellation letters in the mail, however, that pledge looked increasingly strained.
“I am sorry that they, you know, are finding themselves in this situation, based on assurances they got from me,” the President said last night.
In the course of his interview, however, Obama made several other misleading statements that don’t accurately reflect Obamacare’s impact on pre-existing health insurance plans.
In the wake of the cancellation conflagration, the President and his deputies have attempted to minimize the problem by arguing that the failure of the “like your plan” pledge only affects “5 percent of the population”; that is, around two-thirds of the 25 million Americans who shop for coverage on their own.
But that’s not true.
As I noted last week, in 2010, the Obama administration estimated that 93 million Americans would be unable to keep their prior health coverage under the narrow grandfathering provisions issued by the administration in June 2010.
And we are here only talking about disruptions to private health plans, and not counting the law’s $716 billion in cuts to Medicare.
The level of disruption in the employer-sponsored market will be less than that in the individual market, where people shop for coverage on their own.
But the President is most certainly violating his “like your plan” pledge in the employer-sponsored market, too.
For example, employer-sponsored insurance will now have to cover costly, federally-dictated benefits that they did not have to cover before, rendering many plans illegal.
Excise taxes on premiums, drugs, and medical devices will drive premiums upward.
And the so-called “Cadillac tax” on high-value insurance plans will force a massive restructuring of many coverage arrangements.
It’s for these reasons that Delta Air Lines has said that it will spend $100 million more on health insurance in 2014 than it did in 2013, and why labor unions have complained that Obamacare “will drive the costs of collectively bargained, union administered plans, and other plans that cover unionized workers to unsupportable levels.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2013/11/08/fact-checking-the-presidents-kind-of-sort-of-apology-for-obamacare-driven-insurance-cancellations/
As millions of Americans receive cancellation letters in the mail, however, that pledge looked increasingly strained.
“I am sorry that they, you know, are finding themselves in this situation, based on assurances they got from me,” the President said last night.
In the course of his interview, however, Obama made several other misleading statements that don’t accurately reflect Obamacare’s impact on pre-existing health insurance plans.
In the wake of the cancellation conflagration, the President and his deputies have attempted to minimize the problem by arguing that the failure of the “like your plan” pledge only affects “5 percent of the population”; that is, around two-thirds of the 25 million Americans who shop for coverage on their own.
But that’s not true.
As I noted last week, in 2010, the Obama administration estimated that 93 million Americans would be unable to keep their prior health coverage under the narrow grandfathering provisions issued by the administration in June 2010.
And we are here only talking about disruptions to private health plans, and not counting the law’s $716 billion in cuts to Medicare.
The level of disruption in the employer-sponsored market will be less than that in the individual market, where people shop for coverage on their own.
But the President is most certainly violating his “like your plan” pledge in the employer-sponsored market, too.
For example, employer-sponsored insurance will now have to cover costly, federally-dictated benefits that they did not have to cover before, rendering many plans illegal.
Excise taxes on premiums, drugs, and medical devices will drive premiums upward.
And the so-called “Cadillac tax” on high-value insurance plans will force a massive restructuring of many coverage arrangements.
It’s for these reasons that Delta Air Lines has said that it will spend $100 million more on health insurance in 2014 than it did in 2013, and why labor unions have complained that Obamacare “will drive the costs of collectively bargained, union administered plans, and other plans that cover unionized workers to unsupportable levels.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2013/11/08/fact-checking-the-presidents-kind-of-sort-of-apology-for-obamacare-driven-insurance-cancellations/
