Here is what President Obama said about his healthcare plan, when he was trying to get it passed:
"If you like your insurance plan, you will keep it. No one will be able to take that away from you."
Here is Jay Carney explaining what the President really meant:
JAY CARNEY: Well, let's just be clear. What the president said and what everybody said all along is that there is going to be changes brought about by the Affordable Care Act to create minimum standards of coverage, minimum services every insurance provider has to provide. So that an individual shopping for insurance, when he or she purchases that insurance knows that maternity care is covered, that preventive services are covered, that mental health services are covered, that the insurance policy you buy doesn't have an annual limit or a lifetime limit, that there are out of pocket expenses capped at a maximum level, both annually and for a lifetime.
So, it's true that there are existing healthcare plans on the individual market that don't meet those minimum standards and therefore do not qualify for the Affordable Care Act. There are some that can be grandfathered, if people want to keep insurance that is substandard. But what is also true, Americans who have insurance on the existing individual market will now have numerous options available to them and 6 out of 10 will pay less than $100 per month in premiums for better insurance.
It's not even an apples and apples comparison. This is qualitatively better insurance coverage than what was available in many cases to Americans around the country. In many areas where the insurance market was so lightly regulated you often didn't know what you were getting. So you could sign an insurance policy, get that plan, pay a lot of up front money, premiums, out-of-pocket expenses, and then find out that because of the fine print, it does not cover the actual condition that you have. That will no longer be the case. So, I get that, you know, what the effort here is, but the fact is –
ED HENRY: But the president said one thing and you are admitting that that's not going to be the case. That not everyone is going to keep their plan. That they will admiringly wind up with probably better insurance in the long run. So, they may be healthier, that should be said. But the president sold it as if you have a plan, you will get to keep it and that's not true.
CARNEY: Ed, I appreciate what you're trying to do. Eighty-plus percent of the American people already get insurance through their employer, through Medicare or through Medicaid. They don't have to worry about or change anything. Those remaining individuals who do not have insurance at all now will have it available to them through, or don't have insurance at all and get it through the individual market will now have it available to them through expanded Medicaid services in those states that have accepted the expanded Medicaid program, as well as through the health care marketplaces. And it is correct, I take your point, it is correct that substandard plans that don't provide minimum services that have a lot of fine print that leaves consumers in the lurch often because of annual caps, or lifetime caps, or carve outs for some preexisting conditions, those are no longer allowed because the Affordable Care Act is built on the premise that health care is not a privilege, it is a right and there should be a minimum standard of plans available to Americans around the country.*
In other
words: “Of course it’s not true. But the plans these people had were bad plans,
and they are stupid to not realize that they shouldn’t want them. We’re going to give them what they need,
regardless of what they think they want.
Because we know what’s good for them, even if they don’t. And they should thank us – because we’re
smarter.”
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* I’m sorry I had to put all of that in really small print, but Mr. Carney’s
explanation really does sound that the kind of fine print they always in legal
documents or the stuff at the end of those radio commercials where the announcers
talk really fast.
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