DesideriScuri
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ORIGINAL: Lucylastic
left wing huffnpoo article this morning
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/30/if-you-like-your-plan-you-can-keep-it-_n_4175715.html
Way, way back before time itself began, President Barack Obama said these words, in reference to the Affordable Care Act: "If you like your plan, you can keep it." And then, as Daily Intel's Dan Amira pointed out Tuesday, he said it a bunch more times!
Well, the news today is that lots of people aren't going to keep the plans that they are on, and are receiving notice from their health insurance providers that they will be shunted onto different, perhaps more expensive plans. And they no likey. But the White House is furiously pushing back, all the same.
So what gives? Well, to answer that question we have to go to Spin School, and re-examine this line, "If you like your plan, you can keep it." At first blush, it seems pretty straightforward. As with any political quip, however, it sort of contains multitudes. But, to begin with a bottom line, the answer to the question of, "Is this still a true statement?" is basically, "Kind of?" But the words "plan" and "like" are doing a lot of heavy lifting to make that possible.
Let's begin with the whole notion of continuity -- the literal truth about whether a "plan" that you currently have can be "kept." One of the provisions in the Affordable Care Act is a grandfathering clause, intended to exempt the employer-sponsored insurance plans that were in existence at the time of the Affordable Care Act's passage from having to follow the contours of the Affordable Care Act. The problem with the line, "If you like your plan, you can keep it," is that it suggests that what's being grandfathered, here, is the customer's possession of a plan. But what was actually grandfathered was the plans that existed at the time, themselves.
What that means is that everyone could retain their plans so long as no alteration was made to those plans by their providers. However, the very minute a provider made a tweak to those plans, they lost the grandfather protection, and compliance with the Affordable Care Act's new standards became necessary.
There was actually a big fight about this back in September 2010. At that time, the Department of Health and Human Services was pretty forthright about what was likely to happen. As Julian Pecquet of The Hill reported back in 2010:
The Department of Health and Human Services released preliminary regulations in June. They state that plans would lose their grandfathered status if coinsurance and copayments increase more than a specified amount, for example.
According to HHS estimates:
--40 percent to 67 percent of individual policies will lose grandfathered status by 2011;
--34 percent to 64 percent of large employer group plans (100 or more employees) will lose their grandfathered status by 2013: and
--49 percent to 80 percent of small employer group plans (three to 99 employees) will lose their grandfathered status by 2013.
lots more links to a wapo article n more
btw, I notice the insurance companies arent getting any flack over this .....why not?
Insurance companies are following the rules set out by the legislation. Costs rise. Premiums have to rise along with costs, don't they? Increasing costs will cause plans to lose grandfather status. Insurance companies were mandated to not exclude this or that, and include this or that. All those things increased costs to the insurers. How is that extra cost going to be covered? By increases that cause plans to lose grandfather status, that's how.
The fact is, the Administration knew that people would be losing their plans (because the plans would lose grandfather status), but still trumpeted that if people liked their plans, they could keep them.
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What I support:
- A Conservative interpretation of the US Constitution
- Personal Responsibility
- Help for the truly needy
- Limited Government
- Consumption Tax (non-profit charities and food exempt)
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RE: OBAMA LIED!!! - 
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