By Lisa Myers and Hannah Rappleye
NBC News
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.
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.”
None of this should come as a shock to
the Obama administration. The law states that policies in effect as of
March 23, 2010 will be “grandfathered,” meaning consumers can keep those
policies even though they don’t meet requirements of the new health
care law. But the Department of Health and Human Services then wrote
regulations that narrowed that provision, by saying that if any part of a
policy was significantly changed since that date -- the deductible,
co-pay, or benefits, for example -- the policy would not be
grandfathered.
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.” (Continues at NBC)
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