"The Obama administration is set to announce another major delay in implementing the Affordable Care Act," the Hill
reports. Ho hum, Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead. But look
at the next phrase: "easing election pressure on Democrats."
Assuming
the report is accurate--the administration's response yesterday to the
Hill's queries was that "they had no updates to announce"--this looks
like an especially cynical move. The idea, as described by the Hill, is
to minimize the number of consumers victimized before Election Day by
President Obama's you-can-keep-your-plan fraud. Although perhaps it
would be more precisely accurate to say the idea is to minimize the
number of consumers who know before Election Day that they're victims of the fraud.
You'll recall that last year, late in the
summer and through September, insurance companies sent out a wave of
letters informing policyholders that their plans would be canceled for
failing to comply with ObamaCare's many mandates. At first Obama and his
defenders insisted these were all "substandard" policies and the
government was doing people a favor by forcing their cancellation.
When
that claim proved indefensible, Obama announced a partial reprieve: He
"called on states and the insurance industry to allow people to keep
their existing plans for an additional year." The first batch of
policies renewed under that moratorium expire Dec. 31, and insurers must
give policyholders 90 days notice of cancellation.
Thus
if the one-year reprieve expires, cancellation letters will go out at
the same time they did last year--in the weeks leading up to Oct. 1,
less than five weeks before the election. "I don't see how they could
have a bunch of these announcements going out in September," a
health-industry consultant tells the Hill. "Not when they're trying to
defend the Senate and keep their losses at a minimum in the House. This
is not something to have out there right before the election."
(Click link below to read more) READ MORE Sphere: Related Content
No comments:
Post a Comment