President Barack Obama ate crow during a speech today when he announced an “administrative fix” for the disastrous Obamacare roll out.
Obama acknowledged that his administration should have drafted rules prohibiting insurance companies from canceling millions of insurance policies that were already in place before Obamacare launched last month.
Obama asked health insurance companies to allow individuals to keep, or extend, their policies into 2014 — even though the insurance companies have already cleared those old policies off their books.
The insurance companies reacted with anger to Obama’s speech today.
“Insurers can extend current plans that otherwise would be canceled into 2014,” Obama said. “This fix won’t solve every problem for every person, but it’s going to help a lot of people.”
Using numerous sports metaphors and analogies, Obama admitted he dropped the ball by not testing the Healthcare.gov website prior to the disastrous roll out on Oct. 1.
“That’s on me,” he said. We fumbled the rollout on this health care law.”
Speaking directly to the American people who lost their insurance, Obama said, “I, the President of the United States, and the Affordable Care Act, is not going to be getting in the way of you shopping in the individual market that you used to have. As I said, there are still going to be some folks who, over time, are going to find that [Obamacare] is going to be better.
Obama compared the Affordable Care Act to buying cars with seat belts.
“What we’re saying now is, if you’re buying a new car, you’ve got to have a seatbelt. The problem with [Obamacare] is almost like we’re saying to folks you’ve got to buy a new car even if you don’t need it right now. Sooner or later, folks are going to start trading in their old cars. For now, at least, they want to keep the old car even if the new car is better. They should be able to keep their old cars.”
Only 100,000 people have registered for Obamacare — and most of them are sick and elderly.
President Obama had promised that millions of healthy, young customers would offset the costs of the new law requiring insurance companies to cover sick people with preexisting conditions.
Insurance companies are angry that they will now have to foot the bill for those sick and elderly.
