If You Liked Your Insurance You Could Have Kept It!

I ran across a hash tag that read #LiesObamaToldUs and followed it to see if I could find something new.  I did not, but I was able to find this Fact Check from 2009 (see link) when misinformation spread abroad over the new law.  President Obama not only chose a plan that he thought would be agreeable to Republicans with RomneyCare 2.0, he approved a provision that would allow the insurance companies to grandfather customers on existing policies. At the time, the smear tactic was to try and characterize the ACA as a government takeover of healthcare.  Here, the IBD (Investor's Business Daily) is reporting on the issue and are convinced they found a 'gotcha'.  

Ask FactCheck  (http://www.factcheck.org/2009/08/private-insurance-not-outlawed/)

Private Insurance Not Outlawed

• Posted on August 13, 2009

The false idea that H.R. 3200 would prohibit insurance companies from accepting new policyholders stems from the conservative Investors’ Business Daily, which made the claim in a July editorial:

Investor’s Business Daily, July 15: It didn’t take long to run into an "uh-oh" moment when reading the House’s "health care for all Americans" bill. Right there on Page 16 is a provision making individual private medical insurance illegal. … The provision would indeed outlaw individual private coverage. Under the Orwellian header of "Protecting The Choice To Keep Current Coverage," the "Limitation On New Enrollment" section of the bill clearly states:
"Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day" of the year the legislation becomes law.
So we can all keep our coverage, just as promised – with, of course, exceptions: Those who currently have private individual coverage won’t be able to change it. Nor will those who leave a company to work for themselves be free to buy individual plans from private carriers.

Here, however, is the paragraph immediately preceding IBD’s quote:

H.R. 3200: Subject to the succeeding provisions of this section, for purposes of establishing acceptable coverage under this division, the term “grandfathered health insurance coverage” means individual health insurance coverage that is offered and in force and effect before the first day of Y1 if the following conditions are met.

In other words, the quote IBD references is part of the definition of “grandfathered” health insurance coverage. That quote doesn’t say that insurers can’t take on new enrollees; it says that if they do, that won’t be considered grandfathered coverage. In other words, any new individual policies would have to meet minimum standards and be offered through the new health insurance exchange.
The proposed health care model would indeed encourage individuals not already covered by employer-provided health policies to buy coverage through the nationwide insurance exchange. The choices would include a range of private plans meeting the new standards, as well as a new federal plan, as the House bill is currently written. People with individually purchased insurance who wish (or need) to change their grandfathered plans will have to purchase insurance through the exchange. If an individual would rather keep his plan, he can do so for as long as the insurance company keeps offering it. At any rate, nobody will be forced into the federal health insurance option – they’ll have their pick of private ones.
In fact, some say the biggest change will be that individual insurance gets better. "In a lot of ways it would improve options for people buying coverage on the individual market right now," said Sara Collins, vice president of the Commonwealth Fund, a nonpartisan organization that supports “a high performing health care system." The exchange plans would not be underwritten, and would be required to provide a minimum level of service to everybody. There would also be subsidies available for individuals and small employers to offset the cost of purchasing insurance through the exchange.
IBD won’t admit that it misread page 16.....

What the president did not calculate is that insurance companies would risk sending paying customers to another insurance provider by sending out cancellations for existing policies that they could have kept in force. He pointed to this clause when rancor grew,  but ignorance ruled the day.  Some of lifes greatest blessings come from our greatest challenges. The beauty of this issue is captured in a Jay-Z song. When the grass is cut the snakes will show.  Some will be the companies that you worked to protect from loss with several safety net provisions and some of them might be people in your own party who cave under the weak pressure of desperate election losers. There is too much good in this law for any of us to be shameful about it.