Clinton: Obama should honor health care pledge

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP-Excite

By JIM KUHNHENN

WASHINGTON (AP) - Adding pressure to fix the administration's problem-plagued health care program, former President Bill Clinton says President Barack Obama should find a way to let people keep their health coverage, even if it means changing the law.

Clinton says Obama should "honor the commitment that the federal government made to those people and let them keep what they got."

The former president, a Democrat who has helped Obama promote the 3-year-old health law, becomes the latest in Obama's party to urge the president to live up to a promise he made repeatedly, declaring that the if Americans liked their health care coverage, they would be able to keep it under the new law.

Instead, millions of Americans have started receiving insurance cancellation letters. That, coupled with the troubled launch of the health care law's enrollment website, has prompted Republican critics and frustrated Democrats to seek corrections in the law.

FULL story at link.


Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20131112/DAA19VDO2.html

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In this Oct. 30, 2013 file photo, former President Bill Clinton speaks in Charlottesville, Va. Adding pressure to fix the administration's problem-plagued health care program, Clinton says President Barack Obama should find a way to let people keep their health coverage, even if it means changing the law. Clinton says Obama should "honor the commitment that the federal government made to those people and let them keep what they got." (AP Photo/Steve Helber, File)

[PhilosopherKing]

1. Classic triangulation

Good ole Bill.

[bemildred]

23. Yep. nt

[onehandle]

2. I agree. Let idiots that Fox News line up keep their junk insurance.

And 'finding a way' means we need a Democratic Congress.

The Secretary of Explaining Stuff is exactly right.

[babylonsister]

3. So he should be dissing insurance companies

that tweaked their policies to un-grandfather them, not Obama.

Major Insurance Company Faces Lawsuit For Allegedly Tricking Customers Into Canceling Their Policies

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/11/07/2906861/major-insurance-company-lawsuit/

[Kelvin Mace]

5. But if he did that

there would be no more six digit speaking fees or board memberships from the insurance industry...

[babylonsister]

6. An "ah-ha!" moment...

Sounds logical to me.

[sobenji]

10. I work for one of those

They on purpose sent out rate increases with "hey you can get a cheaper premium by increasing your deductible" notices and explicitly omitted the fact that by doing so the policy would be excluded from being grandfathered if changes were made after March 2010. Why the hell is Obama taking heat for this?
And what group of insureds did they do this to? The ones with high claims experience.

[babylonsister]

12. Thank you for sharing that!

And a belated welcome from me!

[nyquil_man]

8. The bill was barely passed WITH a Democratic Congress. nt

[Half-Century Man]

4. NO.

Bad insurance is a waste of time and money.

To compensate for consumer abuse for so long. Insurance companies should have to provide, at the same cost as the shit insurance foisted on the public for years, coverage which meets the federal standards set in the ACA.

[SoapBox]

9. Exactly! And thank you!

Let me quote what he said,

"...find a way to let people keep their health coverage, even if it means changing the law."

Uh, Willie? NO!

The policies were junk and garbage. They were virtually worth NOTHING and not going to provide for most of the people carrying them. Only when
they were swamped with bills from cancer or a horrific car accident, that they find out that they almost non-existent help.

Willie, you need to zip it on this.

p.s.

So I take my 92 year old Mom to her "pain management" office today. For months, the office manager (who is really nice to Mom and bends over backwards to get us appointments as needed...but is pretty much white hillbilly trash) has been, under breath, complaining about Obaammaa Care was at it again today. Also as we sat waiting for some papers, there were numerous other patients checking out...all "senior" (translation, on Medicare or maybe even MediCal), over weight with canes and walkers (sorry for the physical notation but it was not helping any of their knees, hips or backs), white, with either no co-pay or a $5 co-pay...and every single one of them made some kind of "...just wait until that OBAAMMA and his Obammaa Care take away your healthcare" comment.

Makes my blood boil. These idiot don't know shit about the ACA but just bash, bash, bash. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

[nyquil_man]

7. Even if it means changing the law?

Yes, let's go ask the Republican House of Representatives to modify the law in order to take away one of their talking points. I mean, it's not like they've been trying to kill the law since the day it was first suggested...

[sobenji]

11. No to keeping the junk policies

Yes to letting them keep their decent policies that they were deceived into making material changes to.

[Enrique]

13. this would be a change for the worse

but it looks like it's going to happen.

[Kingofalldems]

14. That would never happen. Repubs would throw in

poison pills on any legislation to change the law.

[Hoyt]

15. If they allow it, they need to prohibit them from easily changing into an exchange plan when they

find out they kept a crummy plan, like 12 months or something.

[DRoseDARs]

16. OK, give the Pres. a gun, frog march the CEOs from the offending companies in front of him...

...and let him put a bullet in the head of each one of them who refuses to cease cancelling policies and restore already-cancelled ones.

*facepalm*

For fuck's sake, Bill, how do YOU suggest the President go about forcing private companies to stop being dickbags? They fought tooth and nail against, and spent ungodly sums of money fighting health care reform instead of, you know, making the policies they are cancelling meet the minimum standards of care the law was going to require of them.

The President jammed his foot firmly in his mouth when he made that promise, but can we PLEASE FUCKING STOP pretending he has any control of what these private insurance companies are l e g a l l y doing?

[ConcernedCanuk]

17. Big Dog is looking awful frail

.
.
.

and he's only 4 years older than me.

As for the Healthcare thing - it AIN'T gonna work very well as long as the billionaire insurance companies are involved.

Our universal (single-payer) system has nothing to do with insurance companies - it's funded totally by taxes and donations.

Yes - we can buy medical insurance to get nicer rooms, extended overnights in hospitals and so on, but EVERYONE that is a citizen gets basic healthcare, regardless of income or bank balance.

Obama, and most, if not all legislators could not possibly adopt our system even if they wanted to -

USA's political system is so corrupted with lobbyists and donors from big outfits like pharma, insurance companies, oil etc., that if they don't "toe the line" -

they wouldn't be IN office, and could accomplish nothing.

Kudos to Obama for making it this far . . .



CC

[madrchsod]

22. i`m on medicare.i get the same treatments and rooms as those on insurance

the only people who get better digs are those on corporate platinum plans.

medicare is a single payer system but unfortunately we still have to personally make up that 20%. my 20% is over one hundred thousand and i`m back declaring medical bankruptcy. it should be 100% but this is america.

[JudyM]

18. Why doesn't he give him some suggestions for how to do this instead of publicly slamming him? nt

[madrchsod]

21. why?

because he failed miserably trying to get his healthcare plan passed. he`s jealous because obama got the job done and he could`t.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton_health_care_plan_of_1993

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_and_Louise

[Beacool]

25. Oh yeah, Bill is soooo jealous.

[dflprincess]

19. Go away Bill

and take Hillary with you.

The only entities that would benefit from people keeping their junk policies are the insurance companies and their shareholders.

I've had with your corporate ass kissing.

[Beacool]

26. Sorry, neither one is going anywhere.

[madrchsod]

20. still pissed because he could`t get the deal done when he was the president?

sure in the hell seems like it does`t it. putting Hillary in charge was`t the brightest idea now was it.

thanks billy boy for throwing the president under the bus.

[Beacool]

27. Different times.

Different historical perspectives. He didn't throw anyone under the bus. How about reading everything he said instead of what the media is pushing?

[Orsino]

24. Bad ex-prez. n/t

[Roarybeans]

28. What a mess.

Buba, why? Well, there is the old cliche, follow the money. Lost respect for him when he sold out the LGBT community. No profile in courage here.

[tridim]

29. And with that, the Clinton brand becomes just a bit more gross.

Is it possible that Bill doesn't want Hillary to run?

[McXorsett]

30. Reading an AP report on an interview vs. reading the interview itself

If one wants to get mad at Bill Clinton, one should not read what he said, but four paragraphs of what the AP says he said.

The excerpt does not mention the positive things Bill Clinton said about Obamacare:

1) He said we are better off with ACA than without it, and
2) He downplayed the flawed start of the website, noting that the same errors happened during Medicaid legislation in the 90's, and got fixed anyway.

Noting the one criticism alone makes for better outrage. It allows us to say that Bill Clinton doesn't believe what he said, and that he simply wants to harm Obama for some strange reason.

[pothos]

31. Unreal

instead of pushing back against the latest conservative talking points with actual facts, what would we rather do? get scared and eat our own. sigh.

[Reformed Bully]

32. If Bill Clinton had spent his WH years

honoring his marriage, and concentrated on getting healthcare reform past back then, we would have been done with this issue.