Insurance policy backtracking?

By Jim Killebrew

[November 15, 2013]  Isn't it charitable for the president to suggest to the insurance companies that for the millions of people who have lost their insurance policies, the companies can simply rewrite them and reissue them if they so desire? What a brilliant movement of the political two-step. Now, if those policies are not reinstated, it must be the fault of the insurance companies.

It does seem amazing, doesn't it? The president simply changes in response to the amount of pressure he feels at the moment.

Where is Congress? Are they not aware that laws originate on their playground? Of course they are; they just choose to ignore what he is doing. It is difficult for one part of Congress to hold sway over the other when two different parties hold a majority in each. The president takes full advantage of that situation.

I mean, really, is it the insurance companies' responsibility now to backtrack and try to find all of the people who've had their policies canceled and reinstate those policies so that they can be out of step with the Affordable Care Act? Is Congress going to change the Affordable Care Act to abolish the requirement that those policies be canceled if they're not in sync with the requirements of the law?

The president's argument all along has been that those policies that have been canceled were "substandard," but at his press conference on Nov. 14, he urged the insurance companies to reinstate those policies. If they do, and having completed that process of backtracking, will the president come back and fine them for subverting the Affordable Care Act?  Not only that, if they did initiate a backtracking to reissue those policies, wouldn't they have to cancel them again in a year?

One wonders if the president believes the thousands of professionals in the insurance business, and the customers of those companies, who have purchased those policies just to have them canceled to be in compliance with the Affordable Care Act, are so totally unaware of reality, or just plain stupid, to believe his backtracking is nothing more than a cover for the Democrats running for re-election in 2014.

Clearly, under the extreme pressure of the Democrat senators whose ability to stay in their elected office now depends on creating space between their unwavering support of the law and the massive crash experienced by this law, the president had to do something to protect them from the electorate. Their credibility is symbiotically linked to the president's. Unfortunately, they are seeking re-election in the midst of this disaster, while he has no more elections to survive.

My guess is, very few insurance companies will place their trust in the credibility of what the president is now saying. Nor will many Americans who have lost their policy and have been told what they had was substandard anyway. Who would want it back now?

The president's credibility and approval rating might improve slightly if he would just come clean and tell the truth. Wouldn't it refreshing to hear him say the truth: "The reason I am asking the insurance companies to bail me out with this mess is because I need to provide a plausible cover for my Democrat partners who put their credibility on the line when they went to the mat to vote for a bill that is causing such misery to so many Americans."  Never in a million years will we hear that.

[By JIM KILLEBREW]