Shock: Obama Didn't Consult With Insurers Before He Announced His "Plan" to Rewrite the Law Yet Again

College Football Thread Below. I'm only stomping because there hasn't been news content since Purp's post at 9:30am.

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Obama did consult the insurers after he made his announcement, which is the smart way to do it.

Obama has lived his political life by the principle that it's easier to beg forgiveness than to secure permission.

The day after they were caught off guard by President Obama’s proposal to prevent cancellation of insurance policies for millions of Americans, top executives of some of the biggest insurance companies emerged from a meeting at the White House on Friday, expressing mixed feelings about whether the idea could work in every state.

The hastily called meeting was an attempt by the White House to address the growing frustration of the nation’s insurers over the administration’s fumbling of the health care law.

I think he didn't give them a heads-up because they would have told the media it was entirely unworkable before he announced it, thus denying him his bullshit photo-op announcement of a "fix" designed to fail.

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The insurers, many of whom expressed anger that the president had not consulted them before Thursday’s announcement, said they had come away from the meeting willing to work with the White House...

Victims are often willing to "work with" their tormentors.

Lisa Meyers continues to be the only reporter at NBC. She's the only one who will write stories like this.

Insurers, state officials say cancellation of health care policies just as they predicted

Several insurance industry officials and state insurance commissioners expressed frustration Friday, saying they were “baffled” by President Barack Obama’s assertion that the cancellation of millions of insurance policies occurred because a key provision of the Affordable Care Act didn’t work as expected. The administration was warned three years ago that regulations would have exactly that effect, they said.

They said the widespread cancellations in the individual health insurance market — roughly 5 million and counting -- are in line with what was projected under regulations drawn up by the administration in 2010, requirements that both insurers and businesses objected to at the time.

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“We have been saying for years that the requirements in the law were going to mean that people couldn't keep their current plans and they were going to have to purchase coverage that was more expensive,” said one high-level heath industry insider who spoke on condition of anonymity. “We said these changes would disrupt coverage and increase premiums for consumers. And now everything we said is coming true and people are acting surprised."

@verumserum pointed out that the left claims it's a "lie" that Obama has subjected the health care industry to a "government takeover." All the various lefty fact-checking sites have called this "FALSE" or "PANTS ON FIRE" multiple times.

And yet here's Obama summoning health care executives to order them to take actions which actually are illegal under last week's law.

Sure seems to be a government takeover to me.

Thanks to @johnekdahl for both.

Update [JohnE.]: Turns out Ace and I were simultaneously writing the same post.

On the NYT reporting insurers were unaware of Obama's "fix": Most of us have become pretty used to expecting bumbling incompetence from this administration. But I have to admit I'm surprised that they are so insular and arrogant as to not even check with industry leaders and state insurance commissioners about the feasibly of this unilateral law-ignoring executive gambit before announcing it to the public.

And on the NBC report: The administration was well aware that cancellations were coming. Again, I can understand this administration spinning a web of lies and feigning ignorance about the consequences of this debacle of a law. What I can't understand is their complete internal shock and apparent lack of any gameplan to address a scenario that they knew was coming three years in advance. Did they just think people wouldn't notice? This, to me, shows the real incompetence of this administration. That they never even bothered to have a plan of attack to address a predicable (by their own estimates) and inevitable outcome is just incredible.

We know it's not Obama's fault, though. It was most likely a coordinated right-wing sabotage campaign, which is why there's a helpful petition set up on WhiteHouse.gov to investigate. Godspeed, morons.

Below the fold, @freddoso dug up a great timeline of Obamacare quotes and promises.

posted by Ace at 12:48 PM

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