Friday, November 15, 2013

Obama Offers Fake Solution to #ObamaCare Crisis

At IBD, "Obama's Phony Cancellation Solution":
Fraud: President Obama's attempt to fix the insurance cancellation problem that his own law created isn't meant to help anyone. It's an attempt to shift blame for the mess onto the backs of insurance companies. Some fix.

Even a cursory glance at Obama's "plan" shows that it won't solve anything. Obama says state insurance commissioners could, if they want, let insurance companies extend existing individual plans another year. But they don't have to.

Obama would also leave it up to the insurance companies whether they'd extend these policies, while requiring them to send letters to millions who've already gotten cancellation notices explaining why their current plans suck — thereby loading still more costs onto the backs of insurance companies.

Let's put aside for the moment the question of whether Obama can even do this legally.

This is a president who, after all, has already arbitrarily changed and postponed various parts of ObamaCare — such as the congressional opt-out, the employer mandate, various enforcement rules, cuts to Medicare Advantage, out-of-pocket caps — when they would have proved politically hazardous.

The question is: Why should anyone trust Obama's latest "you can keep your plan" promise?

It turns out, no one should.

Even if Obama's proposal were legal — and he hasn't even convinced liberal stalwarts like Howard Dean, who wonders whether Obama "has the legal authority to do this, since this was a congressional bill that set this up" — it is logistically impossible. And Obama knows it.
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