"It's the INSURANCE COMPANIES, STUPID !"

[RBInMaine]

THAT needs to be the progressive/Dem mantra, and we need to get people who are benefiting from the ACA up in front of the cameras, get people who've been screwed over by JUNK plans up in front of the cameras, and get the TRUTH up in front of the cameras.

Now, to be fair, yes they did fumble on the website rollout. That was a cluster fuck. They should have held off knowing it wasn't proven adequate yet. And in his 09 stump speech, Obama should have been more nuanced about the 5% in the JUNK individual market. (BUT, he was trying to do a short stump message saying most people wouldn't be disrupted and then relied on the grandfather clause to cover the remainder. It fell short, but it was NOT a "lie" given the grandfather clause.)

However, the narrative now needs to shift to "IT IS THE INSURANCE COMPANIES, STUPID." The INSURANCE COMPANIES CHOSE to change some of these plans causing them to lose their grandfather status. THEY CHOSE to offer plans after the law was signed that they KNEW would not meet ACA standards. THEY CHOSE to not extend those plans for a year as they already could have if they did so prior to the end of the year. They CHOSE not to include in their cancellation letters information explaining what the ACA covers and what these plans DON'T cover and that they can get a compliant plan through them or on the exchange at a good rate often with subsidies. THEY are now CHOOSING to resist Obama's tweak explicitly allowing them to extend the JUNK plans. THEY are not fully informing their customers of everything they need to know from their end which is why Obama's tweak and Landrieu's bill DO require them to provide this information.

Maybe the ACA should have FORCED more burdens on the insurance companies, and we can all agree that the ROOT of these issues is that we still have a system with private for-profit insurance companies as the main vehicle for providing healthcare insurance when ideally we should have Medicare For All, but that couldn't pass, and more heavy mandates on the insurance companies may not withstand certain court challenges. Maybe some of the tweaks to the law going forward do need to attempt further mandates.

But to just let these insurance companies off scot free in this is RIDICULOUS as if they carry no obligations, legally or morally. Where is the DU rage at these HORRID insurance companies?

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

1. Very well said. Single payer is the only way to go.

Obama got us half way there - good start, but not good enough - and the question is: who can follow through and take us across the finish line after getting elected in 2016?

[RBInMaine]

3. Tell me how to get it through Congress, remember, that other branch of government.

[PassingFancy]

7. So true - single payer truly is the only way to go

And, if it takes an executive order to push it through, so be it.

I was mad that Obama caved to the republicans. Had I been in his shoes back in 2009/2010, I would have told the republicans to go f themselves and I would have used my executive powers to use an executive order to put in place a single payer system. Hopefully, we are just a very short time away from having a single payer system.

[franciskouasi]

2. hi

no why did u ask?

[RBInMaine]

4. Please clarify.

[global1]

5. We're In An Open Enrollment Period For Medicare....

Look at all the ads on TV for Medicare Supplement and Medicare Advantage Plans and Part D. I'm getting at least one piece of mail a day from health insurance companies.

I keep asking the question - why do the insurance companies participate so well with Medicare and resist ACA?

I'm thinking that the President is between 'the insurance companies and a hard place'. In most respects he needs them to cooperate with him so he has to handle them with 'kid gloves' and in most respects they can pull all kinds of tricks and make all kinds of noise to foul things up and make him look bad.

Now I realize that ACA has standards that impact on the insurance companies bottom lines: covering children to 26; no lifetime caps; no pre-existing conditions; preventive care; the 80/20 rule; etc - but - with the potential of 40 million more people coming into new health insurance - when ACA passed we looked at that as a windfall for the insurance companies.

Seems to me that everyone benefits all around by cooperation on ACA.

Still in a way if the President comes down hard on insurance companies - they have all kinds of ways to further sabotage ACA - so he needs them. He's got to play this game really close and not come down too hard on them.

Right now he needs support from us - the American People, the Dem talking heads and our Dem Senators and Reps - to run interference for him.

[Pinkflamingo]

6. Sad but true.

Definitely the insurance companies are to blame. They knew full damn well what the law required.

In my state (Florida-- I'm ashamed to say), the state Insurance Commissioner McCarty has been ordered to not deny or negotiate ANY RATE INCREASES on behalf of consumers for a period of two years. Great. Give insurers the power to do whatever they want.... Prices have gone up, coverage is way down, and those are the only plans available for individual policy holders such as myself.

They discontinued my old plan a couple of years back, saying it was necessary due to ACA, and gave me a catastrophic policy with a $10,000 deductible for $750/month, saying that it covered everything my old plan did. When I sadly discovered it was a horrible plan, I was told there was no other plan I could have....so I dropped it.

Insurance companies are not our friends by any means. It's unfortunate that we need their cooperation.

[JoePhilly]

9. Sadly, DU now tends to get outraged in lock step with the main stream media.

The media freaks out ... and many of the OPs on DU pick it up and carry it forward.