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The Washington Times
President Barack Obama pauses to rub his eye as he speaks about ... more >
Nearly 40 House Democrats defied President Obama and helped the
Republican majority pass a bill Friday that lets Americans keep, for one
year, health plans that do not comply with Obamacare.
The defections from 39 members of Mr. Obama’s party highlighted the pressure on
Congress to
help people
who lost coverage because of the president’s signature law, as balky
websites keep a veil over alternative plans and pressure mounts on the
Democrat-led
Senate to forge a remedy.
“Let’s face it, millions of people right now have a cancelled policy,”
Rep. Ron Barber, Arizona Democrat, said before voting for the Keep Your Health Plan Act.
The
House passed the bill, 261 to 157, despite a veto threat from Mr.
Obama and objections from Democrats who said the legislation was an
insidious attempt to rot the Affordable Care Act from the inside out.
Four
Republicans voted against the bill, perhaps because it could be
viewed as an attempt to smooth over Mr. Obama’s controversial reforms.
Rep. Fred Upton,
Michigan Republican, offered the bill at the height of furor over Mr.
Obama’s oft-repeated promise that people who liked their health plans
could keep them. Millions of Americans received cancellation notices
because their plans did not meet the health care law’s coverage
requirements, forcing the president to apologize as vulnerable
Democrats scrambled to find a legislative solution.
Rampant
glitches on the HealthCare.gov website — a federal portal that connects
36 states with plans under Obamcare — have intensified the problem,
because people losing their policies cannot explore their options.
Mr. Barber said some Arizonans are “beside themselves.”
“Because
by December 31 they don’t have health coverage, and they can’t get on
the exchange to find out what’s available,” he told reporters.
Mr. Obama announced an administrative remedy on Thursday that permits
insurers to offer a one-year renewal to people who hold noncompliant plans, and
Senate Democrats are pushing legislation that would let existing enrollees hold onto their plans indefinitely.
The Republican-led bill goes further, allowing new enrollees to gain current health plans that do not comply with Obamacare.
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House passes Republican health bill with 39 Democratic votes
By Mark Felsenthal and Susan Cornwell
WASHINGTON
Sat Nov 16, 2013 2:15am EST
1 of 5. U.S. President Barack Obama meets with health insurance chief executives at the White House in Washington November 15, 2013.
Credit: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque
(Reuters) - In the most significant legislative rebuke to President Barack Obama's
healthcare overhaul, 39 members of his Democratic Party voted for a
Republican bill in the House of Representatives on Friday aimed at
undermining his signature domestic policy.
The measure, which
would allow insurance companies to renew and sell inexpensive,
limited-coverage policies that have been canceled because they don't
meet the standards of the new healthcare law that took effect on October
1, passed 261-157.
The 39
Democrats who supported the bill - nearly one-fifth of the party's
caucus - reflected the alarm that spread within Obama's party this week
over the political damage from the botched rollout of the Affordable
Care Act, also known as Obamacare.
Republicans
have vowed to make Democratic support for the troubled law the top
issue in the 2014 elections. Twenty-nine of the 39 Democrats who voted
for the Republican bill are running for re-election in competitive
races, according to rankings by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.
Obama's
approval ratings have plunged during the past six weeks, as the rollout
of the healthcare program that is his top domestic achievement has been
beset by technical glitches with the federal online insurance website
designed to allow consumers to shop for policies.
In
recent days, HealthCare.gov's problems have been overshadowed by
reports that insurance companies were canceling the policies of millions
of Americans whose policies did not meet the new law's requirements
that policies cover emergency treatment, hospital stays and prescription
drugs, among other things.
For years, Obama had promised that Americans would be able to keep their policies if they liked them.
But
the wave of cancellations has fueled the biggest political crisis of
Obama's presidency and led to an extraordinary scene at the White House
on Thursday, as a contrite Obama took the blame for the healthcare
program's dismal start.
He
said he believed that he had to win back the confidence of the American
people, and offered an administrative "fix" that would allow some
people to retain their non-conforming insurance policies for at least a
year.
Obama's plan
dismayed some of his supporters who say that the cheap, limited-coverage
plans that the new law aims to phase out often give consumers a false
sense of having meaningful health coverage.
It also created concern in the insurance industry - which for years had planned the health insurance exchanges created by Obamacare - and among state insurance commissioners.
Industry
advocates warned that Obama effectively was tinkering with the delicate
and complex funding behind the healthcare law, and that premiums could
begin soaring in 2015 if millions of consumers who were projected to be
in Obamacare's health exchanges continued to hold limited-coverage
policies instead.
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