The House approved the Upton (R) version of "Keep Your Plan" by a solid but not veto-proof majority, 261 to 157. Thirty-nine Democrats defied their party leadership's complaint that enforcing the President's 99%-true promise was tantamount to repealing Obamacare.
For those keeping tracks of proposals:
Upton (R-House): Everyone is eligible to sign up for a grandfathered plan for a year, regardless of whether they previously had such a plan, if insurers agree.
Landrieu (D-Senate): Everyone enrolled in a grandfathered plan by October 1, 2013, can keep it until the last customer drops out of the plan, regardless of whether insurers agree.
Obama (by executive fiat): Everyone currently enrolled in a grandfathered plan can keep it for a year unless he says otherwise at any point by executive fiat, if insurers agree. Obama also has announced he would veto the Upton bill. Not that it matters, since it's hard to imagine that Harry Reid will let either the Upton bill or the Landrieu bill come to the floor of the Senate under any circumstances.
4 comments:
The only reason we got here at all was because of the Democrats' ability to maintain party loyalty. It's big news that it is fraying.
Ever seen a big cable fray under load? Like bankruptcy, it is really slow at first then all at once.
Stay tuned..
I read the text of the CMS letter to the Insurance Commissioners. Although Obama said he wouldn't prosecute insurance companies that “extend current plans that would otherwise be cancelled into 2014” he didn't mean until the end of 2014. The CMS letter says:
... health insurance coverage in the individual or small group market that is renewed for a policy year starting between January 1, 2014, and October 1, 2014, and associated group health plans of small businesses, will not be considered to be out of compliance with the market reforms specified below under the conditions specified below.
It's eyewash, about like sentencing me to execution and then offering to stay the sentence temporarily after the bullets have left the rifles of the firing squad. It's not a fix.
But it is a sign of panic, and that's encouraging. These people have woken up voters who rarely pay any attention at all.
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