Smoking gun? Critics cite evidence Obama knew Americans would lose coverage
The GOP has been piling on President Obama over his now-discredited insistence that Americans could keep their existing health plans under the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
聽鈥淚f you like your health-care plan, you will be able to keep your health-care plan. Period,鈥� Obama said repeatedly, going back to when Obamacare was a bill being argued in Congress. 鈥淣o one will take it away. No matter what.鈥�
That turned out to have been wrong, as millions of Americans found out when they learned that their existing health insurance policies were being canceled because they didn鈥檛 meet the requirements of the ACA.
But did Obama simply misspeak when he made those assurances, perhaps unaware of some of the details of his own signature program? Or did he know them to have been false? Either conclusion does political damage.
Although he didn鈥檛 use the word 鈥渓ied鈥� on the Republican radio and Internet address Saturday, Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin came down hard on Obama.
鈥淭hose assurances weren't slight exaggerations or innocent shadings of the truth. They were statements that were fully vetted, coldly calculated, and carefully crafted to deceptively sell your health care plan to a trusting public,鈥� Johnson charged. 鈥淚t was a political fraud echoed relentlessly by House and Senate Democrats who should be held accountable for the disastrous consequences of their grand deception.鈥�
On Sunday, Liz Cheney 鈥� daughter of the former vice president and a tea party-favored candidate to oust Republican incumbent Mike Enzi in next year鈥檚 US Senate race in Wyoming 鈥� didn鈥檛 hesitate to say Obama lied.
On Fox News, Chris Wallace asked her, 鈥淒o you believe that President Obama knowingly lied when he went around the country and promised 鈥榠f you like your insurance you can keep your plan鈥�?鈥�
鈥淚 do,鈥� she replied.
鈥淭here's no question but that he lied, and we're all paying the price for it now,鈥� Cheney said. 鈥淭here's no way he could not have known the truth. There was very clearly a situation in which they were thinking, you know what, the media never hold us accountable, they're not going to hold us accountable here.鈥�
Putting aside any motives Obama may have had, what鈥檚 the evidence that he 鈥渓ied,鈥� as a growing number of elected officials, candidates, and commentators now charge?
The more liberal view is that 鈥渢here is much less here than meets the eye,鈥� as Dean Baker, co-director of the progressive Center for Economic and Policy Research, put it in Salon the other day.
鈥淭he plans being terminated because they don鈥檛 meet the minimal standards were all plans that insurers introduced after the passage of the ACA,鈥� 鈥淚nsurers introduced these plans knowing that they would not meet the standards that would come into effect in 2014.鈥�
鈥淚f the insurers didn鈥檛 tell their clients that the new plans would only be available for a short period of time, the blame would seem to rest with the insurance companies, not the ACA,鈥� Baker wrote. 鈥淎fter all, President Obama did not promise people that he would keep insurers from developing new plans that will not comply with the provisions of the ACA.鈥�
Not so, critics of Obama say, and they point to evidence they say shows that the White House knew what was coming but disregarded that evidence for political purposes.
鈥淚t turns out that an obscure report buried in a 2010 edition of the [page 34552] administration officials predicted a massive disruption of the private insurance market,鈥� on the Forbes web site.
Digging by other reporters came to the same conclusion.
Lisa Myers and Hannah Rappleye of NBC News reported: 鈥淏uried in Obamacare regulations from July 2010 is an estimate that because of normal turnover in the individual insurance market, 鈥�40 to 67 percent鈥� of customers will not be able to keep their policy. And because many policies will have been changed since the key date, 鈥榯he percentage of individual market policies losing grandfather status in a given year exceeds the 40 to 67 percent range.鈥欌�� 聽
鈥淭hat means the administration knew that more than 40 to 67 percent of those in the individual market would not be able to keep their plans, even if they liked them,鈥� on the NBC News web site.
Did Obama 鈥渓ie鈥� about that? The debate continues.
