Just wanted to add something to Tim Carney’s earlier post on insurance companies as Obama allies.
After months of selling his insurance reform plan by demonizing health insurers and accusing them of making obscene profits (not true, by the way), President Obama is now saying we can all count on health insurers to do the right thing voluntarily, without any law forcing them to do so.
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You see, ObamaCare, as written and passed by Congress, does not require insurers to cover children with pre-existing medical conditions. That’s right: Despite oft-repeated promises from congressional Democrats and President Obama, the law was drafted incorrectly and doesn’t do what they promised it would do. This embarrassing fact was discovered after it passed.
As Speaker Pelosi put it, we passed the bill first, and now we find out what’s in it.
Yesterday, the administration claimed that it has not failed to keep its promise, because the White House has made a deal with the major insurers. In a letter, the president for their trade association promised not to deny coverage to such children, even though the law doesn’t require them to do it, and presumably any company could do otherwise at any time between now and 2014, when an entirely new set of stricter rules goes into effect.
Wonderful to hear that insurers can now be trusted to do the right thing in an absence of any legally binding agreement. So wait — why did we need this law again?
