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POTUS apologizes (sort of) for saying people could keep their health plan, doctor, etc.

Posted by Olog-hai on Thu Nov 7 18:43:26 2013, in response to Universal Health Care is HERE in these USA! Apply Now. www.healthcare.gov, posted by SMAZ on Tue Oct 1 13:19:06 2013.

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Obama apologizes for saying people could keep health plans

By Justin Sink
11/07/13 06:03 PM EST

President Obama on Thursday apologized to Americans who are losing their health care coverage despite his promise that if individuals liked their plans, they could keep them under ObamaCare.

"I am sorry that they are finding themselves in this situation based on assurances they got from me," the president told NBC News.

"We've got to work hard to make sure that they know we hear them and we are going to do everything we can to deal with folks who find themselves in a tough position as a consequence of this."

Millions of Americans have received cancellation notices from their insurance companies saying they can't keep their current plans because they don't meet ObamaCare's requirements.

Some insurance companies have also announced they would not continue to offer existing plans, saying that it is too administratively burdensome to manage plans that do not satisfy basic coverage requirements mandated by ObamaCare. Instead, they've offered consumers more expensive plans that include increased benefits.

Republicans have seized on that discrepancy, and say the president misled the American public to sell ObamaCare.

On Tuesday, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Obama had showed "contempt for the American people" with his "deceptive" remarks.

"Just stop. Stop," said Boehner spokesman Brendan Buck. "Stop and admit you sold this health law on a central promise that is flat-out untrue. Have enough respect for the people who elected you to be honest. No one is being fooled anymore."

Last week, the president for the first time began adjusting his statements by noting that only individuals who had maintained unchanged coverage since the ACA was signed into law would be able to keep their coverage.

But the White House has defended Obama, with press secretary Jay Carney saying that a majority of the group who lose their plans would "get better coverage at the same or less cost than they have today."

Carney also noted that only a small slice of the population purchased their own insurance — rather than receiving it through their work or federal programs like Medicare and Medicaid — and that those consumers were accustomed to "upheavals in the market."

Before the implementation of ObamaCare, only a small percentage of private insurance buyers kept the same plan from year to year.

The House plans to vote on a bill next week that would grandfather in all plans that existed as of Jan. 1, 2013.

Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) called the bill "a simple, sensible solution that would allow health plans being offered today to continue into next year" in an op-ed for USA Today on Thursday.

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