WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama bowed to mounting political pressure from across the country and on Capitol Hill on Thursday, announcing new rules that will let insurance companies keep people on health care plans that would not have been allowed under the Affordable Care Act.
Speaking to reporters at the White House, Obama said the proposal should allow most people to retain their health care plans for a year despite having received letters saying they could no longer keep their insurance.
“Insurers can extend current plans that would otherwise be canceled into 2014,” Obama said, after characterizing the rollout as “rough so far.” “This fix won’t solve every problem for every person, but it is going to help a lot of people.”
The president’s proposal would apply only to people who have had their existing policies canceled – those currently without insurance would not be able to buy the old plans.
State insurance commissioners would have the right to override the administrative proposal.
Despite the president’s reversal, Speaker John A. Boehner said Thursday that he intended to push ahead with a House vote Friday on a measure that would allow consumers to keep their canceled plans without penalty and allow others to sign up for them. Boehner said he was skeptical of the president’s proposal and that the new law needed to be overturned.
“The only way to fully protect the American people is to scrap this law once and for all,” Boehner told reporters.
Earlier in the day, Rep. Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco, the Democratic leader, hinted that a change to the Affordable Care Act was likely before the end of the week.
“Stay tuned. It could be an administrative fix, it could be a legislative fix,” said Pelosi, speaking at the Washington Ideas Forum. “I would rather it be done administratively, because then it could be done much more quickly without any accompanying agendas.”
The White House’s turnabout comes as a growing number of congressional Democrats are expressing frustration with the president for the botched rollout of the new heath care law, including a poorly functioning website and the false promise he made that consumers who liked their existing health plans would be able to keep them.
A proposal, led by Sen. Mary L. Landrieu, D-La., and backed by roughly half a dozen other Democrats, is also underway in the Senate. Landrieu’s proposal would allow people to keep their current insurance permanently but, she said, is designed to encourage people to eventually switch to better insurance on the federal exchanges.
On Thursday afternoon, Democratic senators will hold a special caucus meeting to discuss the new health care law, and will be briefed by Denis McDonough, the president’s chief of staff.
For Obama, the proposal is a crucial step toward fixing a mounting political problem: the loss of trust among the public and even his most loyal supporters in Congress.
With several polls showing that a majority of the public does not believe that the president is honest and trustworthy, the White House apparently decided to confront criticism that Obama has not been truthful about the health care law.
The White House had hoped that expressions of regret by Obama in an interview last week would have addressed the public anger about those who are being forced off their health care plans because of the law.
But in the days since the interview, the criticism has continued to build, especially on Capitol Hill, where Democrats have become increasingly angry about the pressure they are receiving from angry constituents.
