The White House effort to blame insurance companie

GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member
The White House effort to blame insurance companies for lost plans


“The provision in the law was the manifestation of the assurance that if you have a plan you want to keep, you can keep it. Insurance companies that chose to strip away benefits from existing plans in the interim, that canceled existing plans in the interim, they took away that grandfathering opportunity. And that’s a reality.”
– White House spokesman Jay Carney, daily press briefing, Nov. 5, 2013


In defending President Obama’s now-discredited pledge that “if you like your health-care plan, you’ll be able to keep it,” the White House has repeatedly tried to blame insurance companies.

White House spokesman Jay Carney’s statement above, accusing insurance companies of stripping away benefits, is typical. Columnists supportive of the White House have piled on, arguing that insurance companies should be blamed.

Meanwhile, Obama, in trying to tweak his original pledge, added this caveat earlier this week: “If you had or have one of these plans before the Affordable Care Act came into law and you really like that plan, what we said was, you could keep it if hasn’t changed since the law’s passed. You’re grandfathered in.”

But there’s an interesting wrinkle to this story that few appeared to have understood. The main culprit is not whether or not the insurance industry has changed a plan that ran afoul of the administration’s regulations — but the law’s effective date. Let’s explain.
 
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