STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Friday, 1 November 2013

[Demeter]

6. Analysis: On healthcare, spying, questions on what Obama knew and when

NOT A HELL OF A LOT, AND STILL DOESN'T, IMO

http://news.yahoo.com/analysis-healthcare-spying-questions-obama-knew-004823388.html

To his critics, President Barack Obama often has seemed to be conveniently distant when trouble has hit his administration.

But on Tuesday, Obama was hit with a public-relations crisis that struck at the core of his domestic and foreign policy - one that raised questions about whether he had misled Americans on his signature healthcare overhaul, and whether he really was unaware of the U.S. government's alleged spying on its allies. It was a dramatic twist for the Democratic president, who was widely seen as outflanking Republicans during the budget battles that led to a partial government shutdown and a near-default by the U.S. government this month.

Until this week, most of the discussion in Washington on the "Obamacare" health insurance program focused on its clumsy rollout, as symbolized by a balky website that is frustrating uninsured Americans' efforts to enroll in the program. But several media reports on Tuesday raised questions about whether the administration was completely truthful in selling the program to Americans four years ago, after Obama was first elected president. The latest flap dates to a pledge that Obama made in 2009 about the healthcare initiative that remains the biggest achievement of his nearly five years in office.

"If you like your healthcare plan, you'll be able to keep your healthcare plan, period," he told the American Medical Association in Chicago on June 15, 2009, a mantra he has repeated regularly - including during his 2012 re-election, when Republicans were saying that the law would force millions of Americans to lose their insurance.

"No one will take it away, no matter what," Obama has said.

But as potentially millions of Americans are learning now, the pledge came with some caveats. Those who buy their own insurance on the open market and who have policies that don't meet minimum standards of the Affordable Care Act are likely to have their policies canceled and replaced with higher-cost alternatives, industry analysts said on Tuesday. The scenario could affect a relatively small percentage of Americans, but nevertheless could involve hundreds of thousands of people who have had inexpensive policies with few benefits, analysts said. White House spokesman Jay Carney said that the administration has always said that some healthcare plans would not meet the new requirements, which require that coverage include emergency services, maternity care, prescription drugs and other popular features. Carney argued that these Americans would end up with better insurance coverage because they have been in a "Wild West" part of the insurance market that was under-regulated.

Republican critics pounced on the White House's defense, saying that Obama had misrepresented the healthcare law for years. They also chided the administration for saying Obama had been surprised by the depth of the glitches on HealthCare.gov, the federal government's online insurance exchange...

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Even TV comedian Jon Stewart of Comedy Central's "The Daily Show," who typically saves his sharpest jabs for Republicans, is making light of what he suggests is the president's curious disengagement from anything controversial.

"If the president is unaware that we were spying on our allies, who gave the go-ahead to spy on our allies?" Stewart said this week during a segment called, "Wait, wait ... Don't tell him."