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Despite President Obama鈥檚 assurances to the contrary, millions of Americans are discovering that they will not be able to keep their current health insurance when the Affordable Care Act takes full effect next year.

Reports Tuesday from CBS and NBC News document this development. , US insurance firms have sent health policy cancellation notices to more than 2 million people, with 800,000 in New Jersey alone.

that 50 to 75 percent of the 14 million Americans who purchase their health insurance as individuals on the open market can expect a cancellation letter, as their policies don鈥檛 meet standards mandated by the ACA.

Mr. Obama has long insisted that under his signature domestic achievement Americans who like their current health plan can keep it. That鈥檚 turning out to not be exactly true as the changes produced by the sweeping Obamacare law work their way through the US health system.

But the White House is pushing back against the notion that Obama was misleading, saying that the cancellation notices are in part the result of normal turnover in the individual insurance market.

鈥淲hat the president said and what everybody said all along is that there are going to be changes brought about by the Affordable Care Act to create minimum standards of coverage,鈥� said White House Press Secretary Jay Carney.

So what鈥檚 going on here? It鈥檚 a complicated subject, so we鈥檒l try to explain it as simply as we can.

First, what鈥檚 at issue here are health insurance policies that people buy themselves on the open market, because their employers do not offer insurance, they work for themselves, or they don鈥檛 work and don鈥檛 qualify for Medicare or Medicaid. It is not about employer-provided health plans, which is how most workers get their coverage.

Second, Obamacare regulations raise the bar for such plans. The ACA requires that they provide fuller and more complete coverage than they did before. Many old cheaper plans that offer coverage only for catastrophic events or that have high deductibles may not meet these new rules.

Third, there is a provision in the ACA that grandfathers in plans in existence at time of the law鈥檚 passage in 2010. But there鈥檚 a catch: They had to remain unchanged to qualify for this status. Any alteration in beneficiaries, co-pays, coverage, or other relatively routine item meant they had become new plans in the eyes of Obamacare.

So that鈥檚 the context.听What鈥檚 happening now is that people with un-grandfathered individual plans that don鈥檛 meet new rules are getting notices that their current coverage is being canceled. In most instances, they鈥檙e being offered a new policy that鈥檚 Obamacare-compliant. But in some, maybe many, cases, that new policy is more expensive, because it offers more.

Middle- and lower-income Americans might qualify for government Obamacare subsidies to pay for this coverage, of course. But they鈥檙e still facing sticker shock and a loss of their current insurance arrangements.

鈥淎n accurate way to portray what鈥檚 happening might go like this: Millions of people are finding out they鈥檙e being rolled over into new policies that provide fuller coverage. But some may end up paying more, even after the subsidies that the law provides,鈥� writes left-leaning in a defense of Obamacare policies.

The political problem for the administration is that Obama鈥檚 assurances that 鈥渋f you like your doctor or health plan, you can keep it鈥� have turned out to be an oversimplification. Republicans have seized on the issue as yet another example of government overreach. They note that many people were satisfied with cheaper individual policies that are no longer available due to the ACA. That may be particularly true for younger, healthier people who are now facing premium increases to offset the costs of older and sicker enrollees.

鈥淧roposed new federal law: Everyone has to buy their cable network鈥檚 most expensive package. More channels for you!鈥� tweeted the right-leaning commentator on Tuesday.

Was Obama鈥檚 promise a falsehood? Current New Jersey governor and possible future GOP presidential candidate Chris Christie on CBS 鈥淭his Morning鈥� Tuesday said flatly that 鈥減eople weren鈥檛 told the truth.鈥�

In a more nuanced view, the generally left-leaning that there are larger goals in the new rules, such as a reduction in the number of medical bankruptcies and improvement of generally skimpy low-cost coverage.

Years prior to implementation, the notion of imposing new regulations on the individual health-care market did not feel as if it were taking people鈥檚 coverage away from them.

鈥淚n the current moment, with cancellation notices going out and alternatives not yet available, it feels exactly like that,鈥� Mr. Chait writes. 鈥淲hich is to say, a promise that felt like a mere oversimplification at the time, and may eventually feel like one in retrospect, currently feels like a lie.鈥�听