| Morning Jolt
. . . with Jim Geraghty October 29, 2013 NBC News: Obama Knew You Couldn't Keep Your Plan All Along Lisa Myers and Hannah Rappleye of NBC News offer an article that will be featured in a LOT of GOP commercials from now until November 2014: President Obama repeatedly assured Americans that after the Affordable Care Act became law, people who liked their health insurance would be able to keep it. But millions of Americans are getting or are about to get cancellation letters for their health insurance under Obamacare, say experts, and the Obama administration has known that for at least three years.
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| | | Four sources deeply involved in the Affordable Care Act tell NBC NEWS that 50 to 75 percent of the 14 million consumers who buy their insurance individually can expect to receive a "cancellation" letter or the equivalent over the next year because their existing policies don't meet the standards mandated by the new health care law. One expert predicts that number could reach as high as 80 percent. And all say that many of those forced to buy pricier new policies will experience "sticker shock." Those of us who can do math just figured out 7 million to 11.2 million Americans will have their health insurance canceled. Recall that the aim of Obamacare was to enroll 7 million people in its first year. Buried in Obamacare regulations from July 2010 is an estimate that because of normal turnover in the individual insurance market, "40 to 67 percent" of customers will not be able to keep their policy. And because many policies will have been changed since the key date, "the percentage of individual market policies losing grandfather status in a given year exceeds the 40 to 67 percent range." That means the administration knew that more than 40 to 67 percent of those in the individual market would not be able to keep their plans, even if they liked them. Yet President Obama, who had promised in 2009, "if you like your health plan, you will be able to keep your health plan," was still saying in 2012, "If [you] already have health insurance, you will keep your health insurance." "This says that when they made the promise, they knew half the people in this market outright couldn't keep what they had and then they wrote the rules so that others couldn't make it either," said Robert Laszewski, of Health Policy and Strategy Associates, a consultant who works for health industry firms. Laszewski estimates that 80 percent of those in the individual market will not be able to keep their current policies and will have to buy insurance that meets requirements of the new law, which generally requires a richer package of benefits than most policies today. Dear Health-Insurance Companies, You had better be ready to fund a massive advertising campaign laying out how you're only following the law on dropping people's existing coverage. Because trust me when I say that the Democrats will scapegoat you morning, noon, and night for the next year over the problems with Obamacare. It doesn't matter that the problems of Obamacare aren't actually your fault. Control of the House and Senate are at stake. The Democratic party's image could take a crippling blow. They could become known as the party that took away your old coverage that you were okay with, jacked up your premiums, forced you into a plan with a huge deductible, forced you away from the doctor you liked, and told you all along that they were helping you. You are already an old reliable villain in Democratic party advertising, and liberals are desperately hunting for a new scapegoat. Think Progress suggests conservatives: "So many of the complications that made the web portal's construction so shoddy grew out from classic conservative impulses: keep spending low, respect federalism as an end in itself, and keep government salaries low." CBS, Suddenly Really Tough on the Obama Administration Between Jan Crawford's always excellent reporting on Fast & Furious, the '60 Minutes' report on Benghazi, John Dickerson's brutal assessment that the administration is in a "credibility death spiral," and this report on the Evening News about Obamacare, it almost feels like CBS News is courting us! I wonder what Dan Rather thinks of the tone of the recent coverage. For many, their introduction to the Affordable Care Act has been negative: a broken website, and now cancellation notices from insurance companies followed by sticker shock over higher prices for the new plans. It's directly at odds with repeated assurances from the president, who has said "if you like your insurance plan, you will keep it. No one will be able to take that away from you." But people across the country are finding out they're losing their existing insurance plans under Obamacare because requirements in the law, such as prenatal and prescription drug coverage, mean their old plans aren't comprehensive enough. In California, Kaiser Permanente terminated policies for 160,000 people. In Florida, at least 300,000 people are losing coverage. That includes 56-year-old Dianne Barrette. Last month, she received a letter from Blue Cross Blue Shield informing her as of January 2014, she would lose her current plan. Barrette pays $54 a month. The new plan she's being offered would run $591 a month -- 10 times more than what she currently pays. Barrette said, "What I have right now is what I am happy with and I just want to know why I can't keep what I have. Why do I have to be forced into something else?" According to HealthCare.gov, Barrette is eligible for some subsidies, CBS News' Jan Crawford pointed out on "CBS This Morning." But Barrette told CBS News she has no idea what those subsidies would be because she cannot log on to the website -- an issue U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is sure to be asked about when she testifies on Capitol Hill Wednesday. America's Uninsured Remain Astonishingly Oblivious of the Entire Obamacare Debate Here's a major problem for everyone involved in politics: A good portion of our fellow Americans don't know jack about squat. You may think I'm exaggerating, but check out the opening sentence of this piece in the Memphis Business Journal: Uninsured Americans are eager to learn more about Obamacare, if they could just figure out where to start looking. Even though the health insurance exchanges opened about a month ago and hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent promoting them, almost half (47 percent) of uninsured Americans still do not know where they can get information on how the Affordable Care Act will affect them, according to a new Bankrate.com report. Gee, if only someone, somewhere, had written something about Obamacare! If only the rollout of Obamacare had gotten some coverage in newspapers, or magazines, or websites, or television, or radio! The story continues: But Americans are interested in learning about it. Nearly two in three uninsured Americans (64 percent) have become more curious about the Affordable Care Act since the exchanges opened on Oct. 1, according to the Bankrate survey. Overall, 51 percent of the population has become more curious over the past month, including equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats. Meanwhile, only one in 10 Americans (11 percent of the uninsured and 9 percent of the overall population) say their health insurance situation has improved over the past year, according to the report. This is actually a really huge problem for the administration. We are blowing up and completely overhauling one-sixth of our economy to help a portion of the public get health insurance . . . and that portion of the public is largely ignoring everything that's going on. ADDENDA: You haven't forgotten about this, have you? 
And while this event doesn't include me, it's probably the next best thing. Bob Costa, Ryan Lizza, Kellyanne Conway, Joshua Green, and John Fund -- those folks know a thing or two. 
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