Posted on 11/13/2013 10:06:18 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Democrats leaving the meeting said the administrative officials gave no details about what tweaks HHS has in mind, or when they might surface.
House Democratic leaders are doubling down in their opposition to GOP legislation allowing Americans to keep their healthcare plans, even as the party is taking a political drubbing over the contentious issue.
Although several centrist Democrats have already endorsed the Republican measure, sponsored by Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), Democratic leaders are digging in behind President Obama, who is adamantly opposed to the GOP bill.
"The Upton bill is just another attempt to undermine the Affordable Care Act. That's it. It's plain and simple," Rep. Joseph Crowley (N.Y.), vice chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said Wednesday after a closed-door meeting of the Caucus in the Capitol. "And when my colleagues on our side understand that, I believe they'll vote against it."
"We're interested in working on anything that … improves the health security law," echoed Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.), the chairman of the Caucus. "But we're not interested in, once again, … repealing all or part of the health security law."
The comments arrive as the pressure is mounting on Obama to come up with administrative changes to the healthcare law that would allow more Americans to keep the insurance plans they currently purchase.
In the months leading up to the law's 2010 passage, Obama had promised that those who like their plans would have the option of staying in them. But in recent weeks, as the deadline for the individual insurance mandate has inched closer, millions of Americans have received cancellation notices revealing that their plans don't meet the minimum coverage criteria established by the law.
Democratic leaders have defended those dynamics, at once blaming insurance companies for offering inferior products and arguing that those who lose their current insurance will ultimately benefit by moving into more robust plans covering many more services.
"There is nothing in the Affordable Care Act that is requiring these policies to be cancelled," Becerra said. "That insurance companies are canceling health insurance policies that Americans may be holding today is the decision of those insurance companies."
Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) piled on, arguing that the Upton bill would allow patients to enroll in inferior plans that the healthcare law was designed to discourage.
"They could reinstate exclusions for pre-existing conditions. They could reinstate gender ratings that would make women pay more," she said. "In other words, [it's] a bill that would allow the insurance companies to go back to their old ways."
But Republicans have pounced, and House GOP leaders have upped the pressure by scheduling a Friday vote on the Upton bill.
"The president has an opportunity over the next couple of weeks to keep his promise," Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Wednesday at a press briefing. "This is not about politics. These are about real people in our districts that are being harmed by ObamaCare."
As the story has churned countless headlines, a growing number of Democrats are also calling on the Obama administration to support a fix.
"Telling people that [these are] the worst kind of policies [that] don't cover anything does not undo the fact that it was a commitment that was made," Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) said as he left Wednesday's Caucus meeting. "The insurance companies were bound to exploit this. We knew that from the beginning."
With the House vote just two days away, many Democrats are urging the White House to come up with an administrative alternative to the Upton bill before that measure hits the floor and Democrats face pressure to back it.
Briefing the Democrats at Wednesday's Caucus meeting were David Simas, the White House deputy senior advisor for communications and strategy, and Mike Hash, director of the office of health reform at the Department of Health and Human Services.
Democrats leaving the meeting said the administrative officials gave no details about what tweaks HHS has in mind, or when they might surface.
What's the difference between a brown-noser and a Sh!thead?
Depth perception.
It's not a bailout of Obamacare. It's a reversal back to how things were BEFORE Obamacare.
The Dems are scared that this will cut the ground out from under Obamacare. Good reason to support the legislation.
Yes, it is.
This moron Upton should be canes, tarred and feathered, then run out of town on a rail.
This moron is providing cover to Obamacare. His bill gives insurers only the OPTION to keep the previous plans.... not a mandate that they keep the previous plans.
The previous plans are gone. They need to be certified by state insurance commissions to be sold. They’d need to be re-certified to be sold. That’s not going to happen overnight.
Upton should shut his soup-cooler, sit down and try to think about what he wants to accomplish. If he wants free press (which is what it appears he wants), then he should simply walk into traffic in front of a TV station and cause a major accident and provide some of his own blood for the headlines and leading story.
With a little luck, the Dems will save the Pubs from themselves on this.
No, it is NOT a reversal to how things were before Obamacare.
It would be a halfway state of idiotic confusion.
His bill makes about as much sense as teats on a bull.
Teats on a bull are important... if the bull doesn’t have them, his female offspring won’t either.
:-)
Please see post 6. It was explained better there than I could do in the time I have.
It will be for those people who would regain their private policies.
Any reversal is a good thing. And it chips away at the credibility of Obamacare which is why the Dems are afraid of the legislation.
that WAS my post. :-)
Who said anything about overnight?
However, there's nothing to prevent the insurance commissioners from fast-tracking the process.
The Dems are terrified because the GOP will be seen as helping these people out of an Obamacare jam which the Democrats got them into.
The vast majority of people who have had a plan cancelled aren’t going to get it back, even with this legislation.
All this legislation does is attach the GOP “name” to the failure of Obamacare.
Sorry to say, but the American public voted for this. There’s going to be lots of collateral damage, but the GOP should stand back and watch the collapse of 20th century liberalism and not offer to save it.
By allowing this to fail and fail spectacularly, people will see that Sugar Daddy Government won’t work. They’ll finally get engaged, even if for a short time, and realize that the math in these schemes never works.
When you’re enemy has decided to sit down, pour a can of gasoline over his head and strike a match, you should simply watch him burn. Do not use it as an opportunity to piss on him and be called a hero.
I was quoting you, so pinged you as a courtesy. :)
The Democrats are terrified because they know that unless they can force people into their plans, the internal mathematics of the plans collapse, like a building with no lower story, it will just pancake down into it’s own basement.
Do not get stuck in this tar pit in any way. Do not try to make it work. Let it fail. Use it as an opportunity to teach people why these schemes never work.
I don't know that I necessarily agree. As the Law still contains the provision that the Insurance Industry pool having a cost over run of over 103% is going to be paid back by the HHS in an administrative function of the law itself, we can expect the debacle in pricing this roll back to now be paid for by the tax payer.
As the law already has this provision set up, it won't take an extra appropration, IMHO. HHS will just give the insurance industry billions to pay for the Democrats over promising what they never intended to provide.
This huge cost will then be attached to Republican Upton's bill and we will share the blame.
So if this thing causes a ten percet over-run of the trillion in insurance it a a hundred billion hit to our spending.
You are right on target. See my point at #34.
yeah i figured that outafter seeing the other names, i am not used to being quoted/pinged... lol :-)
No, the GOP name will be attached to legislation that made an attempt to deliver people from the sorry effects of Obamacare. You've got it backwards.
As an added benefit, the legislation also allows those who don't currently have policies to buy into these older policies (mandates not required). LOL. That's going to cause some serious angst for the Demoncrats.
Repeal, no compromise
Exactly. So the Upton legislation does NOT force people into their plans as the Democrats want. It allows people to have policies without the stinking Democrat mandates.
They do NOT want the Upton legislation. Obama is adamantly against it which is another sterling point in its favor.
“Only 5 Million” people want to hang their congresscritters and Sinators.
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