President calls GOP and insurance companies' bluff.

[truebluegreen]

Egberto Willies for Daily Kos:

The president said, "Insurers can extend current plans that otherwise would be canceled into 2014 and Americans whose plans have been canceled can choose to re-enroll in the same kind of plan." He then said, "This fix won't solve every problem for every person, but it's going to help a lot of people. Doing more would require work with Congress."

The president’s fix allows insurance companies to extend the cancelled policies even if they do not conform to the Affordable Care Act for one year. The insurance companies cannot enroll new customers into the substandard policies. The insurance companies are also required to inform the purchasers of these substandard policies that they may qualify for federal subsidies only through the exchanges. They must disclose that these policies do not have the consumer protections that all new insurance policies must have. They must also inform them that they may qualify for Medicaid,

snip

President Obama tells insurance companies they have the freedom to extend the policies but cannot force them. That removes the narrative of Obama/government takeover of your health care. He forces insurance transparency by requiring insurance companies to come clean on their substandard policies relative to the Affordable Care Act. In doing this the American citizens purchasing these policies know upfront that they are purchasing junk.

The fact that many will now have the comparison and the knowledge that there may be subsidies on the exchange will limit the size of that insurance market. This means it is unlikely many insurance companies will bite. There are some people who will not get subsidies, will not have policies extended by insurance companies, and will be upset that they will pay higher rates. The president put the onus of fixing that on working with Congress. Congress can choose to engage or not. Not engaging becomes a new campaign direction for Democrats.

I haven't been a huge fan of President Obama's and particularly not of his "negotiating" techniques, but I thought from the beginning that this was a genius move: laying the blame for those canceled health insurance policies right where it should be, with the companies that issued, and then canceled them.

Bravo, Mr President!

[doc03]

1. Maybe so but we are getting killed in the PR war n\t

[truebluegreen]

2. I agree, and we've been getting killed from the beginning

since we have a corporate-captured media and a party of banana slugs. Even with a great move like this the President and his surrogates have to be out there making the point.

[Blanks]

3. This is the time to be getting killed.

Give them enough rope to hang themselves.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

5. exactly right!! I recall many instances of PBO doing this same thing.

Remember how many times we've had to shake our heads at what we called the "rope-a-dope" he did; again and again?

Here it is again, but if we watch current media, we FORGET ALL ABOUT that.

That's the media OWNERS' intent. .01%-ers get to decide how to filter the message to their own ends, because there are only a few who own the network corporations. Just a very few of them (two of whom aren't American but use Amerkun Nationalism and other indoctrination techniques to brainwash idiots into looking to fascist ideologies to keep them angry at the Enemy: Liberals and all the changes they keep trying to make.

[ErikJ]

4. Only a Republican would be stupid enough to not know how inferior the old policies were

hopefully they will stay with them and be taken out of the voting pool.

[truebluegreen]

6. I can't argue with you there.

OTOH, the only way they ever learn anything is when it touches them personally.