U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., came out swinging at President Barack Obama on Tuesday after reports emerged that the presidents team knew millions of Americans would lose their health care after the federal health-care law was enacted.
NBC News reported on Tuesday that the Obama administration knew anywhere between 7 millions and 10.5 million Americans would have their health care policy cancelled once the federal law was enacted. CBS News reported on Tuesday that 2 million Americans have already lost their insurance due to the new law.
Rubio, who has called for defunding and delaying the federal health-care law, ripped Obamas handling of the matter.
In 2009, President Obama made this promise: If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period, Rubio wrote supporters on Tuesday. We all know thats not true. Millions of Americans are losing the health insurance they liked and the doctors they trust, all because of Obamacare.
Now NBC News is reporting that President Obama and his team knew all along that you wouldnt be able to keep your health insurance, Rubio added. By telling Americans what insurance they can and cannot purchase, the Obama administration has once again shown its willingness to break promises and encroach on the freedoms of the American people.
I will fight to not only change this, but hold them accountable, Rubio promised.
Rubio called for more conservatives in the Senate to hold President Obama and the Democrats who voted for Obamacare accountable to the promises they made to the American people."
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney tried to get out in front of the matter at a press briefing on Monday.
What the president said and what everybody said all along is that there are going to be changes brought about by the Affordable Care Act that create minimum standards of coverage -- minimum services that every insurance plan has to provide so that an individual shopping for insurance, when he or she purchases that insurance, knows that maternity care is covered, that preventative services are covered, that mental health services are covered, that the insurance policy you buy doesnt 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, Carney said.
So its true that there are existing health care plans on the individual market that don't meet those minimum standards and therefore do not qualify for the Affordable Care Act, Carney added. There are some that can be grandfathered if people want to keep insurance that's substandard. But what is also true is that Americans who have insurance on the existing individual market will now have numerous options available to them, and six out of 10 will pay less than $100 per month in premiums for better insurance. Its 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 an area of the insurance market, by the way, that's so lightly regulated that you often didnt know what you were getting,: Carney insisted. So you could sign an insurance policy, get that plan, pay a lot of upfront money, premiums, out-of-pocket expenses, and then find out that because of the fine print, it doesnt cover the actual condition that you have. That will no longer be the case.
Pressed on the matter, Carney insisted most Americans would be able to keep their insurance, though he did not repeat Obamas early claim that all Americans would remain in their same insurance programs.
Eighty-plus percent of the American people already get insurance through their employer, through Medicare, through Medicaid, Carney said. They don't have to worry about or do 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 or get it through the individual market will now have insurance 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.
Its 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 pre-existing conditions, those are no longer allowed -- because the Affordable Care Act is built on the premise that health care is not a privilege, its a right, and there should be minimum standards for the plans available to Americans across the country, Carney added.
Reach Kevin Derby at kderby@sunshinestatenews.com.
