Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI)
In order to help millions of Americans who are losing their insurance as a result of Obamacare, lawmakers are introducing the “Keep Your Health Plan Act” that will enable people to keep their policies.
“This legislation is about providing folks the peace of mind that they will be allowed to keep their current coverage if they so choose,” said Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) in a statement.
According to Fox News, the “Keep Your Health Plan Act” will ensure that insurance plans available today in the individual market can continue to exist, allowing Americans who want to keep their current health coverage to do so. It also ensures that no American who opts to keep their current plan will face penalties under the Affordable Care Act.
News of the proposed legislation broke just as the media began reporting on hundreds of thousands of Americans who were in the process of losing their health insurance because their policies either don’t meet the minimum standards required by the new law, because they no longer qualify to be grandfathered, or both.
It was then discovered that the reason behind the mass cancellations was a change by the Obama Administration in the grandfathering provision of the Affordable Care Act which disqualified anywhere from 40 to 67 percent of policies in the individual market.
The change was made by the Department of Health and Human Services who wrote regulations that narrowed the grandfather provision by disqualifying any policy that was significantly changed since the signing of Obamacare on March 23, 2010. These significant changes could be anything from an increase in the deductible amount to changes in co-pay.
The result was that millions of Americans are now being dropped by their insurance companies.
Adding insult to injury is the fact that President Obama repeatedly told the American public that they could keep their plans if they liked them – a promise made even while knowing that this change in the grandfather clause would result in a massive number of cancelled policies. An IRS document dating back to 2010 stating that up to 60 percent of individual policies would be cancelled proves that the administration knew that a substantial number of individuals would not be able to keep their insurance after Obamacare went into effect.
White House spokeswoman Jessica Santillo insists that the policies being cancelled do not provide the right protections for the insured.
“But in the vast majority of cases, those same insurers will automatically shift their enrollees to a plan that provides new consumer protections and, for nearly half of individual market enrollees, discounts through premium tax credits,” she said.
But what about those who do not qualify for subsidies? These people are seeing their premiums double and even triple in some cases because of the additional coverage they are now forced to buy whether they need it or not.
At this point in the disastrous rollout of the health care law, a recent poll by Public Opinion Strategies has found that 70 percent of registered voters support delaying the individual mandate with 55 percent of those people saying they “strongly favor” this delay.
Let your representative know that you’re behind this bill that will keep millions of Americans insured! Click here for contact information.
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