Former President Bill Clinton is urging President Obama to allow Americans who have lost their health plans amid the Affordable Care Act rollout to be able to keep their current insurance.
In an interview with OZY.com, published on Tuesday, Clinton said that the president should follow through on his original pledge to the American people in stating “if you like your plan, you can keep it.”
“I personally believe, even if it takes a change in the law, the president should honor the commitment the federal government made to those people and let them keep what they got,” Clinton said in the web interview, citing an encounter with a young man he met the week before whose policy was canceled and substituted with one that doubled his monthly premium. The man also told Clinton he is paying twice as much for the same health care coverage for his family, but his copays and deductibles are “much lower.”
Despite the Obama adminstration’s promise that the health care law would not lead anyone to unwillingly lose their existing health insurance, nearly 3.5 million individual policy holders lost their current health care plans as a result of the law’s implementation, according to the Associated Press. Clinton’s comments are significant because he, too, faced legislative battles over health care policy while in office.
In an exclusive interview with NBC News’ Chuck Todd last week, Obama apologized for the insurance cancellations many individuals received and said his administraion is looking at ways to change that portion of the law.
“I am sorry that they are finding themselves in this situation based on assurances they got from me,” Obama said.
Clinton, a longtime defender of the health care law, also noted that the country is better off with the Affordable Care Act.
Clare Kim