The White House effort to blame insurance companies for lost plans
...But how many people actually would have kept their individual plans that long in the first place? HHS, when it drafted the interim rules, estimated that between 40 and 67 percent of policies in the individual market are in effect for less than one year. “These estimates assume that the policies that terminate are replaced by new individual policies, and that these new policies are not, by definition, grandfathered,” the rules noted. (See page 34553.)...
...Of course, the Affordable Care Act was enacted more than 44 months ago. Using the data available in the chart, we roughly calculated the Gamma distribution curve beyond 44 months. Under our model, only 4.8 percent keep the policy longer than 44 months — and that is likely an overestimate.
Translated, that means about 95 percent of people now getting cancellation notices likely purchased their plan after the effective date of the law....
...Blaming the insurance companies can only go so far. First of all, the administration wrote the rules that set the conditions under which plans lose their grandfathered status. But more important, the law has an effective date so far in the past that it virtually guaranteed that the vast majority of people currently in the individual market would end up with a notice saying they needed to buy insurance on the Obamacare exchanges.
The administration’s effort to pin the blame on insurance companies is a classic case of misdirection. Between 75 and 95 percent of the problem stems from the effective date, but the White House chooses to keep the focus elsewhere....
Obama’s Second, and Continuing, Big Lie
...The bottom line is that the administration expected 51% of all employer plans to be terminated as a result of Obamacare. That is the mid-range estimate; the high-end estimate was 69%. So as of 2010, the Obama administration planned that most Americans with employer-sponsored health care plans would lose them, whether they liked those plans or not….
The administration never intended to allow any American to keep a non-Obamacare insurance policy for any length of time....
...if Obamacare is fully implemented, at least 129 million (68%) will not be able to keep their previous health care plan either because they already have or will lose that coverage by the end of 2014. This includes:
9.2 to 15.4 million in the non-group market
16.6 million in the small group market
102.7 million in the large group market
A dishonest presidency
The Wall Street Journal broke the news this weekend that, even as President Obama was telling the American people they could keep their health plans, “some White House policy advisors objected to the breadth of Mr. Obama’s ‘keep your plan’ promise. They were overruled by political aides.”
Overruled by political aides? This is simply damning.
It’s not easy to get a lie into a presidential speech. Every draft address is circulated to the White House senior staff and key Cabinet officials in something called the “staffing process.” Every line is reviewed by dozens of senior officials, who offer comments and factual corrections. During this process, it turns out, some of Obama’s policy advisers objected to the “you can keep your plan” pledge, pointing out that it was untrue. But it stayed in the speech. That does not happen by accident. It requires a willful intent to deceive. ...
