Former President Clinton is suggesting that President Obama change the ACA to honor the promise that he made that people will be allowed to keep their health insurance plans if they like them.
Video:
President Clinton said,
The big lesson is that we’re better off with this law than without it, and essentially as near as I can determine, there are three problems only two of which the administration can fix. One is the enrollment period didn’t come off well because the national website wasn’t ready, but this happened once before. It happened when President Bush put in the Medicare drug program for seniors, which was not as complicated, but had exactly the same problem with roll out. It was a disaster. There were people who even lost their prescriptions for their existing medicines, and they fixed it.
The next problem is a lot of the states with Republican governors are not taking the Medicaid money. Let me explain this to people watching this video. The healthcare law provides for individuals not covered at work to get insurance and if they are low income. If they are between 133% and 400% of the federal poverty level for their families, they can buy on the market and get tax credits. That’s everywhere. If they are up to 133% of the poverty level, they are supposed to get virtually all of it covered through Medicaid going to the states. These are for working people, not people so called on welfare, they’re already covered. These are working people who make very limited incomes. The Supreme Court gave the states the right to opt out of that, so the states that opt out of that there’s nothing the federal government can do.
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The third problem is for young people mostly, but not all young, who are in the individual market whose incomes are above 400% of the poverty line. They were the ones who heard the promise if you like what you got you can keep it. I met a young man this week who has a family and two children bought in the individual marketplace. His policy was cancelled and one was substituted for it that doubled his premiums. Now I asked him I said same coverage? He said yeah, and I said, but are your co-pays and deductibles the same? He said no they’re much much lower. So he said in the years when I use healthcare, I might actually save money, but he said you know, we’re all young and we’re all healthy. So I personally believe, even if it takes a change in the law, the president should honor the commitment the federal government made to those people and let them keep what they got.
I think President Clinton is pragmatically looking at the bigger picture and thinking that getting better healthcare for hundreds of millions of Americans is worth letting a few million people keep their junk policies.
This could also be a not so subtle sign that the White House is going to support allowing those people in the individual market to keep what they have.
The man that President Clinton described meeting is exactly the kind of person that has to be in the system if it is going to be successful. Young healthy people shouldn’t be able to wait until they get sick in order to decide that they now need healthcare. A person doesn’t get to not buy auto insurance until after they have an accident. Homeowners don’t get to buy fire insurance and be retroactively covered after their house burns down.
The political problem of the “promise” is easy to solve. If people like what they have, they can keep it, but they must begin transitioning towards a policy that is compliant with the law. Lower cost options should be offered to them than a doubling of premiums, but the goal should be to get these people better insurance before they get sick.
If you believe that President Clinton knows something, we should probably be expecting the White House to announce a tweak to the law soon. Clinton is right. There is too much good in this law to let it get derailed by a 5% of those in the individual marketplace.
The law is good, and President Obama can’t let politics stand in the way of a reform that is going to help so many people. The White House would be best served to deal with this latest Republican caused political drama and move on.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
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