Health care law: Pelosi, Feinstein split on changes
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a key architect of the Affordable Care Act, is trying to restrain nervous Democrats from backing a measure that could knock the foundations from under the law - even as erstwhile Democratic allies Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California and former President Bill Clinton endorse similar changes.
The changes would allow millions of people who bought health policies on the individual market, including 1 million people in California, to keep their plans even if those plans fail to meet minimum coverage standards under the new law. Insurance companies' mass cancellations of such policies since the law took effect Oct. 1 have been a public relations nightmare for President Obama, who promised repeatedly over the years that no one who liked their current plans would be forced to change them under his signature law.
On Tuesday, Feinstein signed onto a bill by Sen. Mary Landrieu, a Louisiana Democrat up for re-election next year, that would allow those who already hold such policies to keep them indefinitely. The Senate bill is less dangerous to the law than the one confronting Pelosi in the House, by Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., which would allow insurance companies to continue to sell the old policies to new enrollees.
The House bill is scheduled to come to the floor for a vote Friday. On Wednesday, Pelosi, D-San Francisco, sought to quell unrest at a meeting of House Democrats freshly back from their districts. They demanded that the White House not only fix the troubled website for the federal health insurance exchange, but also deliver some way to allow the old policies to continue.
Anxious members want "an administrative fix by Friday," said a House Democratic aide. "We need one that is credible."
http://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Health-care-law-Pelosi-Feinstein-split-on-4981710.php
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