Will Obamacare get its act together in time?

[Sava]

Um...so, basically what I'm getting out of this is that it's all a matter of perspective and you are wrong.

Maybe you'll understand some day.

[KrazyHorse]

And now we have the nadir of the "Thanks Obama!" meme.

The perigee, as it were.

MrFun is like a reverse Icarus - he flies so low to earth that the dust chokes him.

[SlowwHand]

He can choke on this, too.

Obama says he's sorry Americans losing insurance

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Posted on November 7, 2013 at 5:23 PM

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama says he's sorry Americans are losing health insurance plans he repeatedly said they could keep under his signature health care law. But the president stopped short of apologizing for making those promises in the first place.

"I am sorry that they are finding themselves in this situation based on assurances they got from me," he said in an interview Thursday with NBC News.

He added: "We've got to work hard to make sure that they know we hear them, and we are going to do everything we can to deal with folks who find themselves in a tough position as a consequence of this."

For years, Obama and his advisers promised that Americans who liked their health insurance could keep it, even as the sweeping overhaul of the nation's health insurance market took effect. However, the law mandated that insurance must meet certain standards, and that coverage falling short could not be sold except through a grandfathering process, meaning some policies were always expected to disappear.

At least 3.5 million Americans have been issued cancellations, but the exact number is unclear.

[MrFun]

Why didn't insurance companies bring their customers' current bare bones/crappy policies up to code, to meet the new legal standards, rather than canceling their customers' policies?

[SlowwHand]

Why should I, or you, have to buy insurance that covers pregnancy? Insurance companies love this. They can do whatever they want.

[DinoDoc]

He can choke on this, too.

Here’s a transcript of the full exchange. Would you really call that an apology, Sloww? He doesn't seem all that sorry that he lied to the American people and people’s plans are being canceled because of it.

[Ben Kenobi]

Yeah but most of that stuff was actually justifiable due to him being a very bad president...

Remember if you're still blaming Bush now - that means that Obama's dumpster fire legacy will extend for the same.

[The Mad Monk]

Why didn't insurance companies bring their customers' current bare bones/crappy policies up to code, to meet the new legal standards, rather than canceling their customers' policies?

Because they are contracts, and the healthcare code isn't written to allow that.

[DinoDoc]

Former MSNBC Host’s Health Plan Cancelled, New Plan Costs 3.5 Times More

[MrFun]

Because they are contracts, and the healthcare code isn't written to allow that.

dang

[giblets]

Why didn't insurance companies bring their customers' current bare bones/crappy policies up to code, to meet the new legal standards, rather than canceling their customers' policies?

What a bizarre question.... if you replace someone's current policy with a new one you are, in fact, cancelling their old policy.

[Sava]

I don't understand how insurance companies are escaping blame here. They are the ones cancelling these plans.

And people act like the health care system in American was this utopia before the ACA.

[The Mad Monk]

I get that it's making fun of somebody who blames everything on Obama; and I get that it's done in the style of an infomercial; but why is the woman cramming a banana into a beer bottle?

It's not "in the style of an infomercial", it's a clip from an actual infomercial -- some kind of juicer, IIRC. A lot of the Thanks, Obama! GIFs are like that.

[giblets]

I don't understand how insurance companies are escaping blame here. They are the ones cancelling these plans.

Wouldn't they be breaking the law if they didn't cancel a plan that does not meet Obamacare's requirements? "The law says we have to do it" is usually a pretty good way to escape blame.

[Guynemer]

I don't understand how insurance companies are escaping blame here. They are the ones cancelling these plans.

While I agree that the insurance companies deserve a lot of blame for this, many of the policies being cancelled do not meet the standards installed by the ACA.