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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsConservative LA times debunks the myth that Obama was lying
about keeping old coverage.
It's ironic that MSNBC joined in the pile-on but the LA Times is helping set the record straight.
http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-obamacare-20131029,0,5695979.story#axzz2jDQK0T1D
"Separating the day's myths and realities on Obamacare"
Myth 1:
1. Obama "knew" that people would lose their health insurance. This story, chiefly promoted by NBC News, reflects the Washington media's eternal search for scandal, abetted by every politician's instinct to reduce even the most complicated ideas to a sound byte.
It was always clear that many insurance policies serving the individual market wouldn't conform to the coverage requirements set by the Affordable Care Act and would have to be changed. Some were "grandfathered" in, but the rules dictated that any that were changed by the insuring companies -- including changes in premiums or other terms -- would lose that status.
As a result, millions of policyholders are now being informed that their nonconforming policies are being canceled as of Dec. 31. The idea, of course, is for them to get new policies under Obamacare as of Jan. 1. NBC is breathing heavily over its investigative "discovery" that "because of normal turnover in the individual insurance market, 40 to 67% of customers will not be able to keep their policy" mostly because they changed plans.
But is this news? No: The exact same figure was put out by the Obama Adminsitration -- in 2010. Here's a release from the Department of Health and Human Services from June that year, explaining that "40% to two-thirds of people" in the individual market normally change plans in a year, and thus would no longer be in grandfathered plans. Did Obama "know"? Yes, but so did anyone else who was paying attention, including reporters covering healthcare.
Polly Hennessey
(6,797 posts)Well, if you let Lisa Myers loose on a story you can be sure it will be inaccurate. Oh, and there will be lots of hyperventilating. Remembering the Clinton years.
This link will be useful!