Yesterday CNN's Chief Congressional Correspondent Dana Bash reported that the White House has until Friday to come up with some kind of solution to get people's insurance plans back before Congressional Democrats in both the House and the Senate move to push legislation restoring insurance plans to millions of Americans, a public relations disaster the White House does not want to be facing.
But will this actually work? Is it even possible for people to get their cancelled plans back? Not likely.
Health industry consultant Bob Laszewski says it’s too late for these measures to help Americans losing their policies on January 1. If Congress and the president agreed to a new law, insurance companies would still need time to re-open canceled plans, state insurance commissioners would have to expedite the approval of those plans (a process that usually takes months), and Americans would need time to choose to sign up for their old plan or hold out for a subsidized Obamacare plan.
“You’ve got to have a process where [insurers] send them a letter, and you have to work with their questions, and they have to affirmatively sign up for left or right,” Laszewski tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD. “You’re not going to do that in six weeks.”
Regardless, if legislation gets through the House and Senate in an effort at least trying to get plans back, it will land on President Obama's desk. At that point, he'll have to either sign it in an attempt to make up for his bogus "if you like your plan you can keep it" promise, or he'll veto it, making matters even worse.
We have an insurance crisis looming. Millions of Americans will no longer have health insurance on January 1 thanks to Obamacare and millions still aren't able to sign up for new plans through healthcare.gov. Train-wreck indeed.
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