First on CNN: Obama to push fix for insurance cancellations
[Breaking news update 11:55 a.m. ET]
Sources close to the insurance industry tell CNN's Gloria Borger that it looks like insurance companies will cooperate with President Barack Obama's proposed solution to the problem of health care plan cancellations due to Obamacare.
[Original story posted 11:03 a.m. ET]
(CNN) – President Barack Obama will lay out an administrative solution to address the problem of people getting cancellation notices from their health insurance providers due to the Affordable Care Act, a senior Democratic source familiar with the plan tells CNN's Chief Congressional Correspondent Dana Bash.
Obama will deliver remarks at 11:35 a.m. ET in the White House Press Briefing Room, the White House announced Thursday morning.
The plan will in part call for insurance policies to be renewed for one year for those who already have insurance policies in the individual market, the source said.
If an insurance company does renew a substandard plan, it would be required to do two things. First, it would have to notify the policy holder of alternative coverage options. Second, the company would have to disclose all of the benefits a policy holder will lose if she keeps an existing substandard plan.
The source noted the President may disclose additional details.
White House says Obamacare site improving, enrollment off sharply
In addition, the source said the President would allow state insurance commissioners to decide on their own to not permit this renewal.
It's worth noting, however, that there are some states - including Virginia, Kentucky and Idaho - that require all plans in their state to comply with Affordable Care Act standards.
White House officials get earful from Democrats on Obamacare
Even though the President is about to announce the fix, House Democrats are planning to unveil their own legislative proposal that will be offered as an alternative during a procedural vote on the House GOP bill tomorrow, according to two senior House Democratic aides.
“It's back up,” one of these aides told CNN. “We want to have suspenders and a belt.”
This will allow members of Congress to be on the record voting for a solution.
Poll: Obama approval ratings drop, Americans say he's not trustworthy
When selling Obamacare, the President repeatedly assured Americans they would be able to keep their plans if they liked them. However, many Americans have been getting dropped from their providers because their existing policies don't work with the new regulations.
Obama has since apologized for people losing their coverage and pledged to find a solution.
Many in Congress avoiding health care exchanges
– CNN’s Deirdre Walsh and Mark Preston contributed to this report.
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This is just more political BS to get the hapless Dems past midterm elections. When enrollment targets are not hit, insurers will raise rates on 2014 policies and 2015 rates will be based on 2014 enrollments, meaning they will be higher too. So while this is an attempt to temporarily placate the masses, enough to get them to vote Dem again in 2014, this will ultimately make things worse.
Group A is uninsurable. Requiring insurance for Uninsurable Group A results in Group be being dropped. The President thinks the fix is to require insurance for New Uninsurable Group B? Why won't that just create a new Uninsurable Group C to take Group B's place?
Gee, something tells me this whole ACA was not really thought through.
Insurance companies suck. This is the "free market" that Republicans praise all the time? The companies should realize that this is an opportunity for them to make major bank, but they don't want to help people with health insurance. They just want the money.
WHAT IN THE WORLD DOES THAT PRACTICALLY MEAN???? So my insurance canceled me, but they will reinstate me temporarily, but then I have to switch later anyway?? Here's what it means: a hellish nightmare of paperwork with my insurance company and every time I see a doctor or have any procedure.
I am livid! So Obama is going to grant a one-year extension to anybody who lost their healthcare policy.
Here's what I told my rep's:
I am reading the headlines just now about President Obama offering another waiver from his law, to a select group of citizens.
One yr. extension to people who lost policies.
While I have not lost my policy (yet) where's my 1 year extension?
This law is not being applied equally across the citizens of the Commonwealth which is inherently unfair.
People saying that the insurance plans that are being cancelled don't cover anything, clearly haven't shopped for plans in the private market. There are very good, high deductible plans, that cover everything one would need. My family is on a catastrophic plan, which is being cancelled, that fully covers regular wellness programs at 100% (i.e. physicals, wellness checks, mammograms, etc). It covers cancer. It doesn't have lifetime max. It covers everything beyond the deductible at 100%. While a high deductible plan certainly isn't for everyone, it is right for my family. Why should it be taken away? This notion that only crap plans are getting axed is simply not true and uneducated.
Peter "Since Insurance companies drop thousands of people every year, what percentage of these cancellations are actually related to Obamacare? Any suspicion that the insurance companies are cancelling some people simply in order to use the opportunity to help defeat Obamacare?
You mean cut off the revenue stream that pays their salaries ? How much does a company make off a cancelled policy ? When was the last time 5 million got cancelled just because ?
Americans deserve what they are going thru. If you elect a president who doesnot know what he does, you keep it.
substandard plan? Seriously? My aunt got a cancallation notice 2 weeks ago. She is 64 years old and still employed. Should her health insurance REALLY at her age be required to cover materinity care and pediatric denistry??? That is not a necessity at her age. I wouldnt call her plan substandard. I would call it STANDARD coverage for a person her age. Her old plan did not have these 2 items...as she DID NOT NEED THEM!
This will give Cons something new to whine about for a while.. It's like a red rubber ball..lol
Bandaids on problems usually fall off causing more problems.
Please don't make us listen to Gloria Borger on this. She's always protecting the industries, and she's always yelling at us.
When is this non president going to give... Take your dreams of controlling our lives and your medicaid medical services you want to force on people... Bama is never going to force enough people to pay for this crap so the welfare system can have better care to create more kids they can't feed.
I am totally amazed at the sentence that begins with "If an insurance company does renew a substandard plan,...". That Is about as biased a statement as one can get from whoever the so-called journalists are who wrote this article. You've just labeled all plans that were cancelled as substandard. It doesn't say 'if they reinstate a policy that the administration considers substandard ' or something similar, that's one thing. But the blanket statement from the author is just not acceptable. On the other hand, my policy has (had) much more coverage than many of the so-called 'approved' plans from the exchanges that would be double the cost. You want to write an article? Research some of the bronze plans that have absolutely NO COVERAGE out of network, meaning your caps and deductibles are out the window and you are responsible for ALL the changes. think about that before you load up the kids and travel to grandma's over Thanksgiving where you will be out of network. Now THAT's substandard. Oh, and the admin and pundits comments 'companies cancel policies all the time, it has nothing to do with ACA' I've had individual policies almost 30 years. No lapse in coverage. Total number of policies over that time: 2. never been cancelled. The second policy was because I CHOSE to change policies.
WH's solution...kick the can down the road until after midterm elections. This is a complete failure of leadership and all involved should be ashamed of themselves. The WH and dems implemented an unpopular law that is adversely affecting some of their constituents. Short-term fixes to get past the next election cycle is not serving anybody's needs but politicians. The dems and the POTUS need to own this law, its unpopular components along with its popular ones, and let the voters decide if the benefits out way the costs.
The Democratic way...let's kick the can down the road a little bit. Continuing resolutions, fiscal cliffs and now Obamacare.
They'll make the 5 million who got cancellations go through Healthcare.gov to reinstate their plans and this will boost the enrollment statistics close to the 7 million insured goal. And they'll claim Healthcare.gov was a success because it hit their goal.
Let's fix it for just a year. Just enough time to get the dems through next years election. If you've lost your insurance once, you'll lose it again. I hope they remember this when they vote.
Oh, so the President just waves his wand and everybody gets a 1 year extension ? I thought ObamaCare was Law ? Hmmm, so we vote Nov. 6th 2014 and you get your Health Insurance canceled Nov. 14, 2014. Trying to save Democrat butts here is all Barry is doing. Smoke and Mirrors, you liberal socialist cowards are going down in 2014. You think you can just keep kicking the can down the road, well, you just hit a deadend.
Better Vote Wisely come 2014.
Totally unacceptable, it still requires people to sign up for more insurance than they require and doesn't change the fact that he lied! The success of Obamacare is to enroll young/healthy people to fund the ACA/OC and as the policies are more then they're currently paying...
So, we'll wait a year, AND THEN Obama will be a liar? Are you kidding me? This just gets more pathetic by the day..................
Obama has said the cost of insurance will go up a little this year, Double next and double again the year after. I hope this fiasco pro longs my insrance cost tripling. I`m not sure I could afford to pay twice what I`m paying now. God I hate that guy.
So a law that was pushed through in the middle of the night now admittedly isn't working gets a change without out going through congress... it still stinks, it will not work and people should not sign up for it!
This guy just keeps compounding the mess. What's he going to do when insurance start cancelling employer plans because they don't provide the unnecessary coverage - e.g. prenatal coverage for seniors, maternity coverage for single men, dental and vision coverage for children under 12 for people who have no children or whose children are over 30, and probably a host of other situations - required by the ACA?