By Dan Calabrese ——Bio and Archives--October 30, 2013
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Sebelius told the House Energy and Commerce Committee she apologizes for access problems that have been "miserably frustrating" for many Americans and said she's accountable for fixing them - by the end of November. She added that the system is getting better by the day.
But as the hearing got underway, consumers trying to log in from Virginia got this message: "The system is down at the moment."We couldn't make this funnier if we invented it for one of our fake Facebook conversations. I don't even know if the Three Stooges were better than this. By the way, one thing you have to say for the Obama crew is that they never, ever, ever admit they were wrong, no matter how much they have to use their imaginations. Sebelius was eagerly peddling the administration line that Obama told the truth when he said, "If you like your plan, you can keep your plan." Now, how can that be the truth? The Huffington Post makes a half-hearted attempt to make Obama's case, which sounds like Bill Clinton wrote it:
So what gives? Well, to answer that question we have to go to Spin School, and re-examine this line, "If you like your plan, you can keep it." At first blush, it seems pretty straightforward. As with any political quip, however, it sort of contains multitudes. But, to begin with a bottom line, the answer to the question of, "Is this still a true statement?" is basically, "Kind of?" But the words "plan" and "like" are doing a lot of heavy lifting to make that possible. Let's begin with the whole notion of continuity -- the literal truth about whether a "plan" that you currently have can be "kept." One of the provisions in the Affordable Care Act is a grandfathering clause, intended to exempt the employer-sponsored insurance plans that were in existence at the time of the Affordable Care Act's passage from having to follow the contours of the Affordable Care Act. The problem with the line, "If you like your plan, you can keep it," is that it suggests that what's being grandfathered, here, is the customer's possession of a plan. But what was actually grandfathered was the plans that existed at the time, themselves. What that means is that everyone could retain their plans so long as no alteration was made to those plans by their providers. However, the very minute a provider made a tweak to those plans, they lost the grandfather protection, and compliance with the Affordable Care Act's new standards became necessary.Hey, give them credit for creativity. Obama made a blanket, unqualified statement: "If you like your plan, you can keep your plan. Period." How do you get from that to this bunch of prevaricating gobbledygook? Because the words "plan" and "like" do a lot of heavy lifting or something. Oh, sorry, what's that? The site just crashed again? Enjoy your government health care!
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