Obama: “We fumbled the rollout on this health care law”

President Barack Obama talks about the Affordable Care Act in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington, November 14, 2013. Credit: Reuters/Larry Downing

Under intense pressure for his over 30 promises that Americans could keep their doctors and insurance plans, President Obama announced today a scheme to let insurance companies renew for one year plans that would otherwise be canceled.  If a plan previously was not able to meet the standards of the so-called Affordable Care Act, insurance companies may extend the plan through 2014 rather than cancel it.

Millions of Americans have already received notification of plan cancellation, and the latest band-aid from the Whitehouse essentially leaves it up to insurance commissioners in individual states to permit the “fix” to go ahead, and ultimately, the insurance companies to renew plans that have already been canceled.  There appears to be no means of forcing insurance companies to take this action, however.

As a hat-tip to the policy objectives established by Ezekiel Emanuel, brother to Obama’s former chief of staff and current Mayor of Chicago Rob Emanuel, the president’s “fix” includes the provision that insurance companies must tell policy holders that revitalized plans nevertheless do not meet minimum standards set by Obamacare, and that insurance companies must inform customers about other options on the new Obamacare marketplaces.

Obama noted, “I am confident that by the time we look back on this next year, that people are going to say, ‘This is working well, and it’s helping a lot of people.’”

Time will tell.