Hagan's liability
Published November 13, 2013
Editorial by Greensboro News-Record, November 13, 2013
The Affordable Care Act is giving Sen. Kay Hagan the political chills and could turn out to be unhealthy for her re-election chances next year.
The Democrat from Greensboro told reporters in a conference call Tuesday that she’s pushing to fix Obamacare problems that erupted last month.
They’re her problems, too. It’s not only that the website healthcare.gov has functioned so badly since it went online Oct. 1 that only an estimated 50,000 Americans have been able to use it to enroll in medical insurance plans. Worse for Hagan, she joined President Barack Obama in making a promise that turned out to be untrue.
“The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee crafted a bill that ensures that people who like their insurance and their doctors keep them,” Hagan said on the Senate floor in September 2009. She repeated the claim in press releases and other forums.
Yet millions of Americans who have individual insurance stand to lose their coverage because their plans don’t meet the requirements established under the Affordable Care Act. Many are being offered more costly alternatives.
That should have been anticipated, and explained, from the start. Hagan didn’t address the origin of the misinformation Tuesday but said she supports a bill introduced by Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., called the “Keeping the Affordable Care Act Promise Act.” Landrieu owns up to the promise gone awry and now wants to require insurers to continue current policies.
Next to the dysfunctional online enrollment system, protecting existing plans is the most urgently needed fix. And urgency borders on desperation for Democratic senators like Landrieu and Hagan who strongly supported the Affordable Care Act and now have to carry it into 2014 campaigns.
So Hagan is demanding an investigation into the healthcare.gov problems. She’s calling for an extended enrollment period. She’s urging constituents to check out their options, including eligibility for federal subsidies, through the health care exchange. She’s advising people to call her office for help signing up. And she’s predicting that most people will like the changes Obamacare offers.
Maybe she’s right about that, and today’s political liability will turn into an asset by the middle of 2014. In the meantime, Republicans will trumpet every setback, which reinforces their opposition. For that reason, they can’t be counted on to support fixes that would benefit people who need medical coverage. Even the Landrieu bill helping Americans keep their current coverage might encounter Republican objections because Republicans hope Obamacare collapses, taking Democratic candidates down with it.
Hagan doesn’t want to become an Obamacare casualty, which means she’s got to push hard for positive changes: getting the enrollment mechanisms working properly; protecting people who want to keep current plans; and anticipating the next set of problems that are sure to appear.
Voters are properly skeptical about Obamacare claims. They need to start seeing promises kept, or they will cool to the politicians who let them down.
November 13, 2013 at 10:17 am
Norm Kelly says:
I appreciate the position Hagan has placed herself in. Not only has she supported every effort of Obamacare, she went one step further. While Obamacare was being debated in Washington, she expressed her desire for the name to be changed to something that included the words 'single payer' and, as I recall, pushed to have the plan changed to actually be a single-payer system. 'Single payer' is known in non-socialist circles as 'socialized medicine'.
Sometimes the way things are worded is worth everything. Those who support socialized medicine, like Hagan & Obama, try to choose words carefully so as not to reveal too much truth. For instance, in this post, the wording is 'Landrieu . . . now wants to require insurers to continue current policies.' And Hagan apparently supports this approach. Except the problem ISN'T that insurers are purposely cancelling policies on private payers. It's that the LAW passed by Landrieu, Hagan, Obama, David Price, and ONLY Demoncrats, REQUIRES that insurance companies cancel these plans. The insurance companies didn't WANT to cancel these policies; the insurance companies were FORCED BY LAW to cancel these policies. NOT plans that people weren't willing to pay for out of their own pockets. But plans that people wanted, had expected to renew in 2014, and continue to pay for. Most likely, these people wanted these plans to start with and continued to buy because 1.) they could afford the plan 2.) the plan had the options they wanted 3.) they knew it's protections and limitations and were willing to accept it all. Unlike Demoncrats, who 'know better', I don't anticipate/expect that people are generally stupid. Unlike Demoncrats, I don't anticipate that people who pay their OWN MONEY to purchase something are incapable of making an intelligent decision. Unlike Demoncrats, I don't believe that I AM SMARTER than the average American, nor do I believe that I KNOW BETTER what's best for the masses. I'm willing to let people make their OWN choices on how to spend their OWN money. Obamacare, supported by Landrieu & Hagan, forces people to buy insurance they don't want or need, pay more for it than they want to pay for it, and FORCE people to subsidize their neighbors' plan.
Hagan wants us to check out our options. Problem is her plan restricts our options. On top of that, she wants us to find a way to get federal subsidies for our insurance. We used to buy our insurance with OUR money, with options WE wanted to pay for, without requiring federal subsidies. This IS THE IMPORTANT part of this problem. Now the solution is to hope for subsidies. Except having more & more people get subsidies simply drives up the cost of socialized medicine, just like opponents said before it passed and continue to say since it was passed by ONLY DEMONCRATS! They originally lied to us that it would cost less than 1TRILLION dollars, like that meant it was affordable. Now the estimate is over 2.5TRILLION dollars, and they still think this is a good plan. There's NO WAY over 2TRILLION dollars added to federal spending will help reduce the national debt or the annual deficit. This WILL cause both to explode, driving the country off the cliff.
Just like most Demoncrats who can be counted on to lie to us, this editorial follows the liberal policy. Of course Republicans can be counted on to oppose some legislation regarding fixing socialized medicine. First because socialized medicine can't be fixed it can only be eliminated. Look around the world, look at history, and you will KNOW this is true. But that takes too much thought & research for any liberal to consider doing, so I won't assume you've done it. But the BIG LIE in that paragraph is that Republicans are opposed to doing ANYTHING with Obamacare. Liberals beware. Continued reading means you are going to encounter a fact or 2. Since you despise facts so much, avoid facts at every opportunity, you may wish to stop reading at this point.
FACT: Republicans have tried to pass legislation to change Obamacare since before it was actually passed. Republicans have continued to pass legislation to change Obamacare. Take the delay of the individual mandate for instance. Republicans proposed this long before ANY Demoncrat considered it. And Demoncrats demonized Republicans for this, claiming that they opposed Obamacare so much that agreeing with them to delay the mandate would simply feed into Republican hate of socialized medicine. Republicans were the first to propose legislation FORCING Obamacare to allow people to make their OWN CHOICES on privately-paid-for health insurance plans. Demoncrats have opposed EVERY effort by Republicans to make ANY change to Obamacare! Of course Republicans are opposed to Obamacare, as are all thinking people. There is no place in the Constitution that socialized medicine is allowed, and SCOTUS agreed with this conclusion.
'Anticipating the next set of problems that is sure to appear'. Isn't this reassuring. Someone who supports socialized medicine KNOWS that more problems are coming. I'm supposed to go along with a plan that even the people who want it to succeed are telling me that there will be more problems with it? Why would I accept this? When I deal with a private company, say Best Buy but not for any particular reason, and that private company causes a problem for me, I have alternatives. I can go to CircuitCity.com, OfficeMax, Staples, and other places to get good service & products. When a government MONOPOLY causes me problems, I'm stuck dealing with those problems for the rest of my life with NO RECOURSE. Witness the DMV. When, not if, I have a problem with DMV, what are my alternatives? I have none. When even the employee at DMV can't show me how to properly complete a form the first time, what makes anyone think I can figure it out on my own. I'm forced to make a return trip, after getting a second set of forms completed, waiting in that stupid line all over again. If the DMV, that has just a few simple tasks, can't get their act together and make it easy for me to do my business with them, what makes ANYONE stupid enough to think the government/central planners can get something as complicated as health insurance and health care right? Do you honestly believe that Hagan, Obama, Pelosi are smarter than you? Smart enough to manage YOUR health care? Then let them take care of yours, but allow me to stay out of that system!!!!
