Dr. Weeks’ Comment: Many of us in the health care industry are not surprised by this development.
Millions Of Policies Will Be Canceled Because Of New ACA Standards.
Thursday night, the CBS Evening News reported that despite President Obama’s promise that “if you like your insurance plan, you will keep it,” millions of Americans are going to lose their current coverage because they do not meet new standards set by the Affordable Care Act. Dr. Gerry Kominski is director of the public health policy at UCLA told CBS that “about half of the 14 million people who buy insurance on their own are not going to be able to keep the policies that they had previously.” Carter Evans explained, “New plan prices vary depending on age and location,” but it is likely that “younger people who currently have high-deductible plans will likely pay higher premiums and people with health problems will pay lower premiums.” On its website, CBS News (10/25, 3.87M) reports further.
The Daily Caller (10/25, McHugh, 422K) reports further that since August, hundreds of thousands of people have received notices that the health insurance policies they purchased themselves have been canceled “because the plans do not meet Obamacare’s requirements.” The Daily Caller notes that the number of cancellation notices have far outpaced “the number of Obamacare enrollees,” but adds that it is “difficult to determine exactly how lopsided the rates of cancellations versus the rates of enrollment are – the Obama administration jealously guards the official enrollment numbers, refusing to release them to even the law’s loyal Democratic supporters.”