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 In all, 39 Democrats broke ranks and supported the legislation, a
total that underscored the growing importance of the issue in the
weeks since millions of cancellation notices went out to consumers
covered by plans deemed inadequate under government rules.
The final vote was 261-157 as lawmakers clashed over an issue likely
to be at the heart of next year's midterm elections. The measure
faces an uncertain fate in the Senate, where Democrats seeking
re-election in 2014 are leading a move for generally similar
legislation.
"For the last six weeks the White House stood idly by ignoring the
pleas of millions," said Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., chairman of the
House Energy and Commerce Committee and lead sponsor of the
legislation.
"Our straightforward, one-page bill says, if you like your current
coverage, you should be able to keep it. The president should heed
his own advice and work with us, the Congress, as the founders
intended, not around the legislative process."
But Democrats said the measure was just another in a long line of
attacks on the health care bill from Republicans who have voted
repeatedly to repeal it.
"It would take away the core protections of that law. It creates an
entire shadow market of substandard health care plans," said Rep.
Henry Waxman of California.
The vote came shortly before President Barack Obama welcomed
insurance company CEOs to a White House meeting, and one day after
he announced a shift toward making good on his oft-repeated promise
that anyone liking his pre-Obamacare coverage would be able to keep
it.
In brief opening remarks, he did not refer to the House vote, and
showed no give in his commitment to the program known by his name.
"Because of choice and competition, a whole lot of Americans who
have always seen health insurance out of reach are going to be in a
position to purchase it," he said.
The events capped a remarkable series of politically inspired
maneuvers in recent days. The president and lawmakers in both
parties have sought to position themselves as allies of consumers
who are receiving cancellation notices — yet have made no move to
cooperate on legislation that could require those consumers'
coverage to be renewed if they wanted to keep it.
Neither Obama's new policy nor the bill passed in the House would
ensure that anyone whose policy is canceled will be able to keep it.
Instead, both would permit insurance companies to sell coverage
renewals if they wish — subject to approval by state insurance
commissioners.
The White House meeting came as the industry and state commissioners
began adjusting to the president's one-day-old change in policy.
Under the shift, Obama said insurers should be permitted to continue
to sell to existing customers individual coverage plans that would
be deemed substandard under the health care law. Without the change,
many existing plans would have been banned beginning next year, and
the president's announcement was an attempt to quell a public and
political furor triggered by millions of cancellation notices.
The House measure went one step further. It would give insurance
firms the ability to sell individual plans to new as well as
existing customers, even if the coverage falls short of the law's
requirements.
Democrats sought to substitute a plan of their own that consisted
largely of Obama's new policy, but failed on a party-line vote.
Even so, the combination of the president's announcement and his
party's alternative apparently siphoned off a large number of
Democratic votes from the GOP measure.
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In a veto threat Thursday night, the White House accused Republicans
of seeking to "sabotage the health care law," and said their measure
would allow "insurers to continue to sell new plans that deploy
practices such as not offering coverage for people with pre-existing
conditions, charging women more than men, and continuing yearly caps
on the amount of care that enrollees receive." A veto would come
into play only if both houses approve legislation and send it to the
White House for the president's signature.
Political calculations were evident as Obamacare produced yet more
controversy.
The political arms of both parties in both houses churned out
attacks all week that underscore the importance of the issue in the
2014 elections. Additionally, Obama made an unusual attempt on
Thursday to shelter any Democrat who may have said when the bill was
under consideration in 2010 — as he did — that anyone wanting to
keep current coverage would be permitted to.
"They were entirely sincere about it," he said of the lawmakers.
"It's not on them, it's on us."
In the Senate, a handful of Democrats who face tough re-election
races next year, led by Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, are
supporting legislation to require insurance companies to renew
policies cancelled because of the law.
Under the law, plans generally are required to meet numerous
conditions to qualify. Among them, they would have to accept all
customers, regardless of pre-existing conditions, would be limited
in additional premiums they could charge on the basis of age and
could not cap lifetime benefits. They also would have to provide
coverage in a wide range of areas — doctor and hospital care for
adults and children, laboratory services, preventive coverage and
prescription drugs among them.
The cancellation issue is only part of the woes confronting the
president and his allies as they struggle to sustain the health care
law.
Obama has repeatedly apologized for a dismal launch of
www.healthcare.gov , which consumers in 36 states were supposed to
use beginning on Oct. 1 to sign up for new coverage. The website is
so riddled with problems that the administration disclosed earlier
this week that fewer than 27,000 signups have been completed — a
number that Republicans noted is dwarfed by the flood of
cancellations issued due to the law.
Compounding the administration's misery, the poor quality of the
website has made it that much harder for consumers receiving
cancellation notices to shop for alternative plans.
It is unclear what, if anything, the administration is prepared to
do to alleviate the threat of a break in coverage for those
consumers.
[Associated
Press; DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent]
Associated Press writers
Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Julie Pace and Alan Fram in Washington and
David Eggert in Detroit contributed to this report.
Copyright 2013 The Associated
Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
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