On Thursday, President Obama unveiled another “fix” for ObamaCare. Americans who had their insurance plans cancelled, because they didn’t meet all of ObamaCare’s coverage mandates, can renew those policies for another year. Presumably, their plans would be cancelled at the end of 2014, after the midterm elections.
Obama’s carve out for the individual insurance market is a reflection of the panic settling in among Democrats on Capitol Hill. Many of these lawmakers echoed Obama’s false claim that people could keep their existing coverage. This reassurance was critical to the health care law passing. With the midterms a year away and a number of vulnerable Senate Democrats up for reelection in red states, lawmakers have been scrambling to find fixes to the insurance cancellations debacle.
It is likely, however, that the damage is already done. Insurers have already oriented their business away from the individual insurance market. It is doubtful they can reengineer their plans to offer again the old coverage. The fact that the “fix” only lasts a year provides little incentive to reintroduce the plans.
Nancy Pelosi famously said, “we have to pass the bill, to find out what’s in it.” Turns out, she was prophetic. The problem for Obama and the Democrats, however, is that the more Americans find out what is in ObamaCare, the less they like it.