President Obama calls out ‘bad apple insurers’ as Obamacare raises requirements for insurance policies
The President is still battling to defend the Obamacare rollout and during a speech in Boston Wednesday, President Obama said the focus moves to weed out “bad apple insurers” who don’t provide enough coverage.
photo LaDawna Howard via Flickr
“One of the things health reform was designed to do was to help not only the uninsured but also the under-insured,” Obama said. “And there are a number of Americans, fewer than 5 percent of Americans, who’ve got cut-rate plans that don’t offer real financial protection in the event of a serious illness or an accident.”
The President is responding to reports that carriers are “canceling” current policies which don’t live up to the heightened standards in the ACA.
“Remember, before the Affordable Care Act, these bad apple insurers had free rein every single year to limit the care that you received or used minor pre-existing conditions to jack up your premiums or bill you into bankruptcy.”
Obama said any such plans that existed before the health care law was passed can indeed be kept — notably excluding plans that began after the law was passed.
“That’s what I said when I was running for office. That was part of the promise we made,” Obama said. “But ever since the law was passed, if insurers decided to downgrade or cancel these substandard plans, what we said under the law is, you’ve got to replace them with quality, comprehensive coverage because that too was a central premise of the Affordable Care Act from the very beginning.”
The President closed by addressed some of the recent complaints about the website.
“Right now, the Web site is too slow, too many people have gotten stuck, and I am not happy about it,” Obama said at a speech in Boston promoting the similar Massachusetts health-care law.
Obama added: “So there’s no excuse for it, and I take full responsibility for making sure it gets fixed ASAP.”
The administration has set a late November deadline for fixing the Web site.
