President Barack Obama offered an apology Thursday to those Americans who have been told they’re losing their health insurance plans, contrary to his promise that no one would be forced off a plan they wanted to keep.
“I am sorry that they are finding themselves in this situation based on assurances they got from me,” the president said in a Thursday interview with NBC News, offering his first mea culpa for an issue that’s generated negative headlines for the White House for the past two weeks.
Obama has ordered his policy aides to draw up an administrative fix for the problem, a White House official said Thursday night. The president alluded to the move during the interview, saying “I’ve assigned my team to see what we can do to close some of the holes and gaps in the law.”
Administration aides are looking for ways to provide relief to consumers who have received cancellation notices but do not qualify for tax subsidies, the White House official said.
The fix is an attempt by the White House to move past an issue that’s damaged the president’s credibility and sparked outrage among Democrats and Republicans. Lawmakers have offered bills to deal with the dropped policies, but those efforts are likely to get bogged down in the divisive politics of Obamacare, which is why the White House is looking at an administrative fix.
“That’s something that we’re gonna do everything we can to get fixed,” Obama said.
But Obama made clear he doesn’t think he lied in what he’d been saying over the past few years. (Continues)
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