November 13, 2013

DEMS GET ANXIOUS (VERY) OVER OBAMACARE PROBLEMS

Mary Landrieu (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Sen.Mary Landrieu (D., La)


N.Y. TIMES  

Anxious congressional Democrats are threatening to abandon President Obama on a central element of his signature health care law, voicing increasing support for proposals that would allow Americans who are losing their health insurance coverage because of the Affordable Care Act to retain it.

The dissent comes as the Obama administration released enrollment figures that fell far short of expectations, [cf. Five Star Final] and as House Republicans continued their sharp criticism of administration officials at congressional hearings examining the performance of the health care website and possible security risks of the online insurance exchanges.

In addition, a vote is scheduled Friday in the Republican-controlled House on a bill that would allow Americans to keep their existing health coverage through 2014 without penalties. The measure, drafted by Representative Fred Upton, the Michigan Republican who is the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, is opposed by the White House, which argues that it would severely undermine the Affordable Care Act by allowing insurance companies to continue to sell health coverage that does not meet the higher standard of Mr. Obama’s health care law.
 
But a growing number of House Democrats, reflecting a strong political backlash to the rollout of the law, are warning the White House that they may support the measure if the administration does not provide a strong alternative argument. The approaching House vote is shaping up as an important test for both the health measure and the unity that Democratic leaders have so far been able to maintain around it despite a fierce Republican attack.
 
In a closed-door meeting Wednesday of House Democrats and White House officials, tensions flared as several lawmakers upbraided the administration, saying that the president had put Democrats in a tough political position by wrongly promising consumers that they could keep their existing health care plans. In fact, hundreds of thousands of Americans have received cancellation notices from their insurers because their health care coverage does not meet the minimum standards dictated by the new law.
 
“I think the Upton bill is terrible, but we need something else to vote for in order to keep our word to the American people. We told people in those plans that they were grandfathered in, and if they wanted to stay in them, they could, and we need to honor that.”

A similar proposal, which would allow people to keep their current health insurance permanently, is also drawing support in the Senate under an effort led by Senator Mary L. Landrieu, Democrat of Louisiana.
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Insurance companies, already deeply worried about the low enrollment in the plans they are offering on the insurance exchanges, say congressional proposals to force them to allow canceled policies to be reissued could be disastrous. Robert Zirkelbach, a spokesman for America’s Health Insurance Plans, the industry’s lobby, said insurers “have significant concerns on how it would work operationally.”
But with no alternative proposal from the White House as of Wednesday, Democrats were increasingly critical.

HUFFINGTON POST

 Senator Jeff Merkley — a blue state Dem — surprised Obamacare supporters when he signed on to Mary Landrieu’s fix to the bill, the “Keeping the Affordable Care Act Promise Act,” which would require insurers to continue plans for a year.

Coming from one of the Senate's most notably progressive voices, the Oregon Democrat's announcement was a particularly vivid demonstration of how nervous party members are over the state of the Affordable Care Act. The flawed website, combined with the steady stream of news of insurers forcing people to adopt more comprehensive and at times expensive plans in response to new regulations, had already persuaded five other Democrats to support the Keeping the Affordable Care Act Promise Act, introduced by Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.).

Meanwhile, in the House, ...lawmakers in that chamber were, by and large, staying away from the Republican-pushed measure that would allow people to stay on their plans for another year. But top aides were warning of a swarm of potential defections should the Obama administration not introduce its own administrative fix for the issue of canceled health insurance plans by the end of the week.

A Democratic aide said that the case being made against the Upton bill was multilayered. Not only would it allow current policyholders to continue their coverage, opponents argue, but it would allow new applicants to purchase that coverage as well -- all but encouraging healthy individuals to avoid the exchanges in favor of cheaper plans while leaving sick and older Americans in the newly created marketplace. The other major problem with the Upton bill that the aide noted was that it would extend this grandfather provision for just a year, meaning that people would be receiving cancellation notices in October of next year, a month before the 2014 elections. This, the aide noted, would be "problematic."
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Then there is the question whether any of these bills could possibly work. After all, hundreds of thousands of cancellation notices have already gone out from insurers. A law that would essentially nullify those cancellation letters would require a huge administrative undertaking to execute. Insurers would have to send out updated letters, they'd have to ensure that the old plans complied with state regulations, and they'd have to re-enroll individuals who wanted to retain their policies.
"I'm sure the industry would like to do this. Don’t get me wrong. But everyone has to realize it took the insurance industry the better part of the year here to get ready for this," said Robert Laszewski, a health insurance industry consultant at Health Policy and Strategy Associates and a skeptic about the ACA. "It is practically impossible to do this. You can't put the genie back in the bottle. The insurance industry was ready for Obamacare but the Obama administration is not. When the Obama administration hit the go button, the dominoes were set in motion."