**Posted by Phineas
This isn’t exactly new news; when Forbes reported it [1] back in October, their estimate was 93 million. But, the difference aside, this counts as an official admission that tens of millions [2] will lose their employer-based coverage:
“It is projected that more group health plans will transition to the requirements under the regulations as time goes on,” DOJ lawyers wrote in response to court challenge to the law’s requirement that insurance plans provide coverage of contraception. “Defendants have estimated that a majority of group health plans will have lost their grandfather status by the end 2013.”
The DOJ cites the June 17, 2010, edition [3] of the Federal Register, which acknowledges that within the first year of Obamacare’s employer mandate, the insurance plans offered by many employers will be canceled because their policies will not be grandfathered under the administration’s regulations. ”The Departments’ mid-range estimate is that 66 percent of small-employer plans and 45 percent of large-employer plans will relinquish their grandfather status by the end of 2013,” the Register says. “The low-end estimates are for 49 percent and 34 percent of small and large-employer plans, respectively, to have relinquished grandfather status, and the high-end estimates are 80 percent and 64 percent, respectively.”
Note the date: June 17th, 2010. The government knew over three years ago that “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan. Period.” was a lie.
Period.
And it’s not just Obama and his Unicorn team who were lying weasels about the gutting of the private insurance market: via Byron York, here’s a list from Senator McConnell’s office of 27 Democratic senators [4] making the same false promise. Per Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), “We all knew.” [5]
I’ll bet she’s popular in the Democratic caucus room right about now.
Think for a moment about the furor we’re currently experiencing over 4-5 million plans being canceled: sticker shock, anxiety over disrupted coverage, reduced provider networks, the loss of critically-needed treatment [6]. Now multiply that 16-fold to deal with the 80 million likely to lose their group health plans.
And we’ll be ready to remind these people just who it was who threw multiple monkey wrenches into their lives.
Because we’re helpful that way.
via Bryan Preston [7]
RELATED: Will Democrats soon begin calling for repeal? [8] And here’s a great article by Andrew McCarthy on “Obama’s 5% Con Job.” [9]
(Crossposted at Public Secrets [10])