President Obama discussed the Affordable Care Act’s failures earlier today in a press conference. Thursday afternoon, Obama offered what he hopes will offer an administrative “fix” to the Affordable Care Act.
Private insurance companies are forced to meet the Essential Health Benefit Standards, or so-called “superior standards” that the law mandates, such as prenatal care and free birth control for men, or coverage for prostate check-ups for women.
As reported in our PPD study, he law’s unprecedented mandates are causing private companies to drop millions of Americans from their existing health coverage.
The “fix” that Obama plans on implementing is directing insurance companies to allow affected policy holders to renew their old coverage and allowing insurers to extend their cancelled policies for a year.
“I completely get how upsetting this could be for many Americans,” Obama said.
This “fix” is only delaying the inevitable until conveniently after the 2014 elections. And come the following year we will truly see the negative impacts of ObamaCare.
Those who are most familiar with the Affordable Care Act, however, know that this “fix” isn’t at all such. If the younger, healthy people with individual private plans are no longer being forced into the exchanges, how will the law sustain itself?
In fact, Zeke Emanuel, brother to former Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, said just last night that a plan such as this would drive premiums in the exchange way up.
White House officials stated that a letter will be issued to the state insurance commissioners, which will specify that current plans sold to existing customers will not be considered out of compliance with the health care law in 2014.
The administration is still not showing substantial flexibility, however, with the president making it crystal clear that he will not even consider an alternative that strips his law.
The broken promises that President Obama reiterated several times throughout the years since the law has been passed, have prompted public outrage toward both the president and the Affordable Care Act, itself.
The majority of Americans believe that the president blatantly lied to them, therefore, winning their trust back will be a grueling task, and that is provided the insurance companies even comply with this option.
What are the incentives for private insurers to comply with such a “fix,” when less than a year later they will have to reissue another pink slip to the same insurers?
President Barrack Obama admits,“It won’t solve every problem for every person but it will solve a lot of them.”
Obama strategically avoided making statements that took on the security risks that each user of the exchange has assumed, encouraging individuals to compare and shop the ObamaCare exchanges.
The pressure from the Democratic Party demanding Obama fix the catastrophic problems associated with his landmark health care law has been building due to the upcoming 2014 elections. This delay will only slow down the astronomical amount of debt we will incur once this law has its free rein.
House Speaker John Boehner is “highly skeptical” that the White House administration would be able to fix the problems with ObamaCare administratively. Speaker John Boehner said, “the only way to fix it is to scrap it.”
Boehner has called ObamaCare a “rolling calamity that has to be stopped.” He also described the outcome of this law on private insurance companies stating, “this is going to destroy the best health care delivery system in the world.”
Earlier, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) foreshadowed the president’s announcement. Pelosi has been a staunch supporter of ObamaCare, going to the lengths of legislative bribery an strong arming House Democrats to pass the law. She is known for the infamous and nonsensical comment that “we had to pass the law in order to know what is in the law.”
White House officials are scheduled to meet with the House and Senate Democratic caucuses to strategize over the “fixes” of this debacle later today on Capitol Hill.
