You Will Be Able to Keep Your Doctor
For patients, he made a sweeping pledge that “no matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise: If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period.
In promoting ObamaCare, Obama repeatedly and shamelessly lied to the American people: “If you like the plan you have, you can keep it. If you like the doctor you have, you can keep your doctor, too,” he said on June 6, 2009, in one of dozens of similar remarks. Obama knew this was untrue at the time; it was built into the plan that millions would lose the health plans they had. -Kyle Smith 
"The rollout was so bad, and I was appalled--I don't understand how the president could have sat there and not been checking on that on a weekly basis," Frank said. "But frankly, he should never have said as much as he did, that if you like your current health care plan, you can keep it. That wasn't true. And you shouldn't lie to people. And they just lied to people." -Democrat Barney Frank
In 2009, President Obama said this: “Let me be clear: If you like your doctor or health care provider, you can keep them. If you like your health care plan, you can keep that too.”
Obama Said You Could Keep Your
Health Care Plan
"But frankly, he should never have said as much as he did, that if you like your current health care plan, you can keep it. That wasn't true. And you shouldn't lie to people. And they just lied to people." -Barney Frank
Hillary Clinton In 2007:
You Can Keep Your Health Plan And Your Doctors
"I learned how important it is to present a plan that's clear and easy to understand... This is not government run. There will be no new bureaucracies. You can keep the doctors you know and trust. You keep the insurance you have if you like it. But this plan expands personal choice and increases competition to keep costs down."
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The number of doctors available in many healthcare plans is shrinking under ObamaCare, forcing some patients to pay more or switch providers, according to a new report. Four in 10 healthcare plans sold through the government’s marketplace have so few options that their networks are described as “small” or "extra small,” according to a report by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. A small network means that plans cover fewer than 25 percent of doctors in the area, while extra small covers fewer than 10 percent, according to the group’s definition.
They Knew. They Lied.
House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer conceded to reporters today that Democrats knew people would not be able to keep their current health care plans under Obamacare and expressed qualified contrition for President Obama’s repeated vows to the contrary.
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Because these exchange plans often have lower reimbursement rates, some doctors are limiting how many new patients they take with these policies, physician groups and other experts say. "The exchanges have become very much like Medicaid," says Andrew Kleinman, a plastic surgeon and president of the Medical Society of the State of New York. "Physicians who are in solo practices have to be careful to not take too many patients reimbursed at lower rates or they're not going to be in business very long."
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Over 214,000 doctors won't participate in the new plans under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), analysis of a new survey by Medical Group Management Association shows. That number of 214,524, estimated by American Action Forum, is through May 2014, but appears to be growing due to plans that force doctors to take on burdensome costs. It's also about a quarter of the total number of 893,851 active professional physicians reported by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
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Obamacare plans have shrunk payments to physicians so much that some doctors say they won’t be able to afford to accept Obamacare coverage, NPR reports. Many of the eight million sign-ups in Obamacare exchanges nationwide already face more limited choices for physicians and hospitals than those in the private insurance market. But with low physician reimbursement rates, the problem could get even worse.
While sitting in front of a portrait of George Washington Thursday, President Obama admitted that the average person might have to lose their doctor under his signature healthcare law.
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ST. PETERSBURG — Charlene Lake thought she got a decent deal through the Affordable Care Act marketplace: a Humana HMO that included a family doctor a few miles from her home. Five months later, Lake wonders if she can even use the insurance she bought... But aside from first-year fumbles, the case also shows the downside of limiting consumer choice of physicians through what is known as narrow networks. Or, in Lake's case, a network so narrow it barely exists. "You can't make people sign up for a health care plan and then not have a doctor," said Lake...
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Nearly 10,000 Las Vegas casino workers say they are considering going on strike over what the unpopular Obamacare program has done to their health care insurance... "The biggest hurdle to reaching settlements in Vegas is the new costs imposed on our health plan by Obamacare," Unite Here President Donald Taylor told Buzzfeed. "Even though the president and Congress promised we could keep our health plan, the reality is, unless the law is fixed, that won't be true."
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A California senator has sued his state’s ObamaCare exchange for causing the cancellation of more than a million policies and spending tax dollars in an “irrational, unreasonable and abusive” way, such as a lurid Richard Simmons video. The lawsuit against Covered California and its director, Peter Lee, was filed late Tuesday by Sen. Ted Gaines, the legislature’s most vocal critic of ObamaCare.
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Aliso Viejo resident Danielle Nelson said Anthem Blue Cross promised half a dozen times that her oncologists would be covered under her new policy. She was diagnosed last year with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and discovered a suspicious lump near her jaw in early January. But when she went to her oncologist's office, she promptly encountered a bright orange sign saying that Covered California plans are not accepted. "I'm a complete fan of the Affordable Care Act, but now I can't sleep at night," Nelson said. "I can't imagine this is how President Obama wanted it to happen."
It ranks as one of the biggest presidential lies of modern times, all the more so because Obama repeated it 30 times. The fallout of millions being forced from their policies, an experience exacerbated by the hapless Web site, has created a crisis of confidence so vast, it threatens to swallow the second term. -Michael Goodwin
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It was a catchy political pitch and a chance to calm nerves about his dramatic and complicated plan to bring historic change to America’s health insurance system. "If you like your health care plan, you can keep it," President Barack Obama said -- many times -- of his landmark new law. But the promise was impossible to keep. -Politifact
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In Chicago, Rush University Medical Center used to be covered "in network" by all the health plans offered in Cook County, Illinois' largest county. Now, of the 71 plans serving the county on the state's exchange, Rush is covered by only 38 plans. In New York, one of the world's foremost cancer hospitals, the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, is not "in network" for any of the insurance plans on the state's exchange.
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UnitedHealth Group dropped thousands of doctors from its networks in recent weeks, leaving many elderly patients unsure whether they need to switch plans to continue seeing their doctors, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.
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Wagner and her husband retired early. She was a nurse for 35 years and championed Obamacare, until she received a letter from her insurance company saying it was canceling her policy. “I was really shocked … all of my hopes were sort of dashed,” Wagner said. “’Oh my gosh President Obama, this is not what we hoped for, it’s not what we were told.’ “
It is an uncomfortable position for many members of the creative classes to be in. “We are the Obama people,” said Camille Sweeney, a New York writer and member of the Authors Guild. Her insurance is being canceled, and she is dismayed that neither her pediatrician nor her general practitioner appears to be on the exchange plans.
On the Hill, Senators Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and Joe Manchin (D-WV) have proposed the Keeping the Affordable Care Act Promise Act, which seeks to force President Obama to live up to the “like it, keep it” promise he made when selling the ACA to the public.
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San Francisco architect Lee Hammack says he and his wife, JoEllen Brothers, are "cradle Democrats." They have donated to the liberal group Organizing for America and worked the phone banks a year ago for President Obama’s re-election... The couple — Lee, 60, and JoEllen, 59 — have been paying $550 a month for their health coverage — a plan that offers solid coverage, not one of the skimpy plans Obama has criticized. But recently, Kaiser informed them the plan would be canceled at the end of the year because it did not meet the requirements of the Affordable Care Act. The couple would need to find another one. The cost would be around double what they pay now, but the benefits would be worse. “From all of the sob stories I’ve heard and read, ours is the most extreme,” Lee told me in an email last week.
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A poll conducted by the New York State Medical Society finds that 44 percent of MDs said they are not participating in the nation’s new health-care plan. Another 33 percent say they’re still not sure whether to become ObamaCare providers. Only 23 percent of the 409 physicians queried said they’re taking patients who signed up through health exchanges. “This is so poorly designed that a lot of doctors are afraid to participate,” said Dr. Sam Unterricht, president of the 29,000-member organization.
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CBS News has learned more than two million Americans have been told they cannot renew their current insurance policies -- more than triple the number of people said to be buying insurance under the new Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare... CBS News has reached out to insurance companies across the country to determine some of the real numbers -- and this is just the tip of the iceberg, Crawford said. The people who are opening the letters are shocked to learn they can't keep their insurance policies despite President Obama's assurances to the contrary.
“We want to hold the president to his word: If you like your health-care coverage, you can keep it, and that just hasn’t been the case,” said Donald “D.” Taylor, president of Unite Here, the union that represents about 400,000 hotel and restaurant workers...
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The Obama administration has known for at least three years that millions of Americans would not be able to keep their current health care plans, despite repeated promises to the contrary made by President Barack Obama, NBC News reports, citing sources “deeply involved” in Obamacare. Americans across the country have begun receiving cancellation letters from their health insurance providers informing them that their current plans do not meet requirements of Obamacare.
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Elderly New Yorkers are in a panic after getting notices that insurance companies are booting their doctors from the Medicare Advantage program as a result of the shifting medical landscape under ObamaCare. That leaves patients with unenviable choices: keep the same insurance plan and find another doctor, pay out of pocket or look for another plan where their physician is a member.
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White House spokesman Jay Carney explained at today's briefing that "it's true" some Americans will not be able to keep their health care plan under Obamacare... Carney said, "So it's true there are existing health care plans on the individual market that do not meet those minimum standards and therfore do not qualify for the Affordable Care Act."
David Axelrod offered a slightly different promise about Obamacare than has the president: While that president has repeatedly said, “If you like your plan, you can keep it,” Axelrod on Monday told MSNBC that “most” will be able to stick with their plan.... Axelrod’s rephrased guarantee comes as reports of millions of Americans losing their healthcare plans are rolling in.
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) admitted Sunday to knowing the promises President Obama made about his signature health care plan were false... "He should’ve just been specific. No, we all knew."
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The Affordable Care Act was signed by President Obama in 2010 and since then he has repeated one reassuring phrase: "If you like your insurance plan you will keep it. No one will be able to take that away from you. It hasn't happened yet. It won't happen in the future." But it is happening. The president's health care law raises the standards for insurance policies, which many consider to be a good thing. But hundreds of thousands of Americans whose policies don't meet the new standards are being told that their health plans are being cancelled.
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Health plans are sending hundreds of thousands of cancellation letters to people who buy their own coverage, frustrating some consumers who want to keep what they have and forcing others to buy more costly policies. The main reason insurers offer is that the policies fall short of what the Affordable Care Act requires starting Jan. 1. Most are ending policies sold after the law passed in March 2010. At least a few are cancelling plans sold to people with pre-existing medical conditions... But the cancellation notices, which began arriving in August, have shocked many consumers in light of President Barack Obama’s promise that people could keep their plans if they liked them.
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Federal officials often say that health insurance will cost consumers less than expected under President Obama’s health care law. But they rarely mention one big reason: many insurers are significantly limiting the choices of doctors and hospitals available to consumers.
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The Nevada State AFL-CIO has joined the chorus of unions slamming Obamacare, claiming that certain provisions of the law could end up destroying multi-employer union health plans and criticizing the administration for not addressing its concerns... Danny Thompson, head of the Nevada State AFL-CIO, told the Las Vegas Sun that unions were led to believe that Obamacare would not change their Taft-Hartley plans. "We were told if you had a health insurance you liked it would be left alone. Well it hasn't been left alone," he said.
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Some labor unions that enthusiastically backed President Barack Obama's health care overhaul are now frustrated and angry, fearful that it will jeopardize benefits for millions of their members... "It makes an untruth out of what the president said — that if you like your insurance, you could keep it," said Joe Hansen, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. "That is not going to be true for millions of workers now."
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Some prominent health insurers, including industry giant UnitedHealth Group Inc., are not participating in California's new state-run health insurance market, possibly limiting the number of choices for millions of consumers.
If you are one of the millions of people who lost their health insurance under ObamaCare, the President’s lie “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it” probably still stings.
But to CBS This Morning host Charlie Rose and the Obama speechwriters he invited on his PBS show, it’s now a hilarious laugh line.
-Geoffrey Dickens