Bubba to ‘Bama on #Obamacare: “Honor the commitment” you made on keeping plans

Pres. Obama and Bill Clinton hug
Watch out for the knife, President Obama.

Fox News reports that, in a recent interview, the former President urged the current President to keep the promise he made that people could keep their health insurance plans if they liked them:

A blunt critique from Bill Clinton on President Obama’s handling of the rocky ObamaCare rollout is prompting the White House to pledge another set of health law fixes — though in doing so, it could inadvertently build the case for those calling for a delay in the law’s implementation.

Aside from scrambling to fix the broken HealthCare.gov website, the administration is now trying to deal with the millions of Americans who have received cancellation notices. On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said the president’s team is trying to figure out a way to offer relief to some of those policyholders.

The statement comes after former President Clinton,Β in an interview with the site Ozy.com, said Obama should live up to his promise to Americans that if they like their health plans, they can keep them.

“So I personally believe, even if it takes a change to the law, the president should honor the commitment the federal government made to those people and let them keep what they got,” Clinton said.

Asked Tuesday if Obama agreed, Carney said: “The answer’s yes.”

But what “changes” would the President and his party – the advocates and creators of this intricate failing monstrosity – be able to conceivably make to try and undo the damage that has already been done?

It’s unclear, though, how the administration could go about doing that. Insurance companies are the ones canceling policies — due to new requirements under the health care overhaul — and would likely have to be involved in any effort to restore coverage.

Robert Zirkelbach, spokesman with America’s Health Insurance Plans, told FoxNews.com that all the myriad plans to reverse or stop the cancellation notices raise questions about how that would be achieved. He said in many cases, changes to existing policies have already been filed with state regulators and consumers have been notified.

“That’s a lot to go back and unwind,” he said, noting that any modified health plans would have to be reviewed and approved by state regulators.

“That typical process takes many months,” he said.

The insurance industry generally does not support any delay in the implementation of the ObamaCare insurance mandates, out of concern that a delay would deprive them of much-needed customers at a time when they’re dealing with the cost of additional coverage requirements.

But any effort to overhaul the cancellations might require an extended timeframe.

Separately, House Republicans, as well as some Senate Democrats, are planning legislation that would allow people losing their current coverage to keep their plans. Obama has not said whether he would support such legislation.

Dontcha love it? Republicans, in a good faith effort, are doing their best to try and undo the damage done by panicked, election-minded Democrats who – in contrast – are trying to “fix” legislation they knew was going to lead to the exact same scenarios playing out right now with millions either losing plans and/or coverage they liked or paying a LOT MORE for the coverage they liked due to skyrocketing premiums. Β US history is filled with examples of government trying to “fix” problems it created by passing bad legislation it was warned against early on. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Sigh …

Sidenote: Doug Powers at Michelle Malkin’s blog quips re: Bill Clinton:

Operation β€œGet Hillary as Far Away from This Train Wreck as Possible” has commenced.

Yep!

Read more via Memeorandum.

Comments are closed.