Statement on President Obama’s ObamaCare “Fix” by National Center for Public Policy Research Health Care Expert Dr. David Hogberg

Washington, D.C. – The following is the statement of David Hogberg, Ph.D., senior fellow for health care policy at the National Center for Public Policy Research, on President Obama’s ObamaCare announcement today:

Today President Obama displayed the arrogance and contempt for the American people that has become a hallmark of his Administration. He proposes to take action for which he has no legal authority and he is using insurers as the propaganda arm of ObamaCare.

President Obama proposes an administrative fix to the over 5 million people who have lost their insurance policies. He said that people who had either had plans that had changed or plans that were bought since ObamaCare passed would be able to keep them.

The law does not permit the President to let people who bought coverage after ObamaCare passed to keep their plans. Fixing that is something that should be done, but it requires Congress to change the law. It can’t be done by presidential decree. But, as has happened so many other times with ObamaCare, the President is ignoring the law to do what is politically convenient.

The President also proposed requiring insurers to send letters to cancelled policyholders letting them know that they can keep their insurance and also inform them of their options on the exchange.

This is little more than a transparent attempt to use insurers as propaganda tools to promote the ObamaCare exchanges. Otherwise, the president must really think the Americans who have received cancellation notices are idiots who are too incompetent to research their options. But as numerous news reports have shown, people have researched their options and found only more expensive policies on the exchanges.

The National Center for Public Policy Research, founded in 1982, is a non-partisan, free-market, independent conservative think-tank. Ninety-four percent of its support comes from individuals, less than four percent from foundations, and less than two percent from corporations. It receives over 350,000 individual contributions a year from over 96,000 active recent contributors. It has not received contributions from health insurance companies.

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The National Center for Public Policy Research is a communications and research foundation supportive of a strong national defense and dedicated to providing free market solutions to today’s public policy problems. We believe that the principles of a free market, individual liberty and personal responsibility provide the greatest hope for meeting the challenges facing America in the 21st century.