11/16/2013

Newest Fox News piece: Why insurance companies who follow the ObamaCare 'fix' could face legal troubles

Here is the way that my newest Fox News piece starts:
Will Obama's newest “if you like it you can keep it” offer for health insurance really let Americans get their canceled plans back? 
No. And the president knows it.  
The proposal was rushed out on Thursday for two purposes: to give Congressional Democrats cover today before a vote in the House and shift the blame to others. As will be explained shortly, Obama ignored that there is no way for insurance companies to ignore the current law as it stands. 
Five million Americans have so far lost their insurance and they are suffering sticker shock from the new policies. More Americans on individual plans will soon get notices.  
Unfortunately, the problem won’t be limited to the five percent of Americans that Obama claimed on Thursday. Over the next year, at least a total of 129 million Americans will find that they can't keep their current policies as employer-based insurance policies face renewal. 
Obama's "solution" to people losing their policies is to promise he will not enforce part of the ObamaCare law for one year.  . . .
 UPDATE:  Democrats are now planning on attacking insurance companies for not providing the old insurance plans.  From The Hill newspaper:
Democratic lawmakers have taken a more aggressive posture, however. They are pressuring the industry to take responsibility for hundreds of thousands of people who want to keep their insurance plans but could not until this past week because they failed to meet ObamaCare’s requirements. 
They say the ball is now in the industry’s court after the president announced his administration would let companies continue to offer plans that do not meet the law’s standards if people want to keep them. 
“What we have to do is have all legislators team up and call upon the insurance industry to honor their side of the bargain because it requires not only the government side but it requires the insurance companies to keep offering the policies and not cancel them on folks,” said Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.).
“I’ll be calling on insurance companies to continue to extend the individual plans that citizens currently have,” he said. 
A senior Senate Democratic aide said companies should take advantage of the one-year administrative fix Obama announced Thursday. 
“This now rests at the feet of the insurance companies. They’re the ones that have to step up and make the plans available,” the aide said.

UPDATE: Here is a statement from a Democratic congressman wondering whether Obama has the legal authority to do what he did.

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1 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

And we all _know_ what those promises are worth.....(spit)

11/16/2013 6:26 PM  

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