Friday, November 08, 2013

"You can keep your Chevy as long as it’s a Cadillac": Obama essentially mandated “Cadillac health plans” when what many people wanted was a trusty old Chevy

Millions of Americans are waking up this week to the realization that the health care plans they liked will no longer be available because they don’t satisfy the requirements set forth in the risibly named Affordable Care Act (ACA) 
writes Benny Huang.
The total number who have already lost their coverage is about two million, a number that Democrats have tried hard to downplay. Though two million is certainly a minority in a country with a population of about 315 million, that’s still more than the individual populations of fourteen states and the District of Columbia. And that’s just in the first month of (almost) full implementation. The future forebodes more.

President Obama was unequivocal and repetitious in his assurances that anyone who wanted to stick with their current plan would be allowed to do so. In an odd turn of events, an actual journalist posed an actual question about this to Press Secretary Jay Carney. I must admit that I was shocked, though less so when I found out that it was Ed Henry, a Fox News reporter. No wonder liberals want him excluded from the press pool.

 … “No matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise to the American people,” said the President. “…If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period. No one will take that away. No matter what.”

 … What the government has done is essentially outlawed bare-bones plans that served many people well because they did only what insurance is supposed to do—provide care in case of catastrophic injury or illness. He essentially mandated “Cadillac health plans” when what many people wanted was a trusty old Chevy. As if people couldn’t have bought the Cadillac plans before, of their own volition.

 … You can keep your Chevy as long as it’s a Cadillac.

It’s more than a little strange that, in all of the many instances in which the president and others made the identical promise, they never managed to include that caveat. They were clear. No one would lose their plan. No one.

 … So rest easy tonight. The Ministry of Truth says everything’s gonna be all right. The site continues: “Scary chain emails and videos are starting to percolate on the internet, breathlessly claiming, for example, to ‘uncover’ the truth about the President’s health insurance reform positions.” The page asserts that conservative critics who claimed that Obamacare would mean the end of their plans are dead wrong. Because the president said he wouldn’t do that.

Bam! Debunked, sucka!

The website has further instructions for good Obamabots. “As part of our effort to push back on the misinformation about health insurance reform, we’ve launched Whitehouse.gov/realitycheck. It’s full of videos and tools you can use to share the facts with your friends and family.”

The site then encourages people to snitch on anyone who says otherwise. “If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov”

 Lois Lerner will get right on it, lickety-split.
Related: There’s a reason Obama is the best funded candidate in world history, and it is NOT because he eschews corporate money