Senior Democrats confirmed this week what Republicans have been saying all along about Obamacare: If you like your healthcare plan, you may not be able to keep it. Rather than admit that they ‘misled’ Americans, however, Democrats are now mincing their words.
“I don’t think the message was wrong. I think the message was accurate. It was not precise enough…[it] should have been caveated with – ‘assuming you have a policy that in fact does do what the bill is designed to do,’ ” Hoyer said at a press conference this morning, according to National Review Online.
“We knew that there would be some policies that would not qualify and therefore people would be required to get more extensive coverage. ”
Yesterday, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney made a similar argument, claiming that, “there are existing health care plans on the individual market that do not meet those minimum standards and therefore do not qualify for the Affordable Care Act.”
But that’s not what President Obama said in 2009 during the healthcare debate. Obama repeatedly promised that, “No one will take it away. No matter what.”
It doesn’t get more precise than that.
Republicans have been saying for the last four years that Americans would see their premiums skyrocket and plans dropped as a result of the type of healthcare reform Democrats in Congress were seeking. Blinded by their ideology, Democrats clung to their claims that the Affordable Care Act would expand the healthcare marketplace, not diminish it. That’s clearly not been the case.
The problem with Democrats’ messaging on Obamacare is not that it wasn’t “precise” enough. It’s that it was flat out wrong. Congressional Democrats and the President deliberately gave Americans the wrong impression during the healthcare debate about how the proposed law would affect them. That’s the very definition of misleading.
