It may be all over for Obama
President Obama’s proposed policy “fix” may ultimately fix little in the mess the Affordable Care Act has created, but his concessions Thursday nonetheless made history. In an unprecedented admission, Obama not only owned up to failure — something he has never done — but he admitted to misleading congressional Democrats who are now being blamed for telling their constituents they could keep insurance plans they liked.
{mosads}”And by the way, I think its very important for me to note that, you know, there are a whole bunch of folks up in Congress and others who made this statement, and they were entirely sincere about it. And the fact that you’ve got this percentage of people who have had this, you know, impact — I want them to know that, you know, that their senator or congressman, they were making representations based on what I told them and this White House and our administrative staff told them and so it’s not on them, it’s on us,” he said. Read: I misled everyone in my party, and now they are furious and fear electoral defeat, and I have to admit it publicly.
Obama also admitted he hoped the duped would ultimately be OK with being duped because they would discover these great new plans they didn’t know would be oh-so-much better than the current plans and then would maybe, only maybe, cost less or the same as their old plan. “My expectation was that for 98 percent of the public either it genuinely wouldn’t change at all, or they would be pleasantly surprised with the options in the marketplace and that the grandfather clause would cover the rest. That proved not to be the case. And that’s on me,” he said.
There’s a lot “on” Obama now as Democrats scramble to distance themselves from his false promise, the failed website and the president himself in the wake of ObamaCare’s frightful start. As a lame-duck president with approval ratings down in the danger zone and little prospect for a second-term agenda, Obama will soon find that unless the ACA’s enrollment and popularity increase dramatically, he is all alone.
WILL THE INSURANCE COMPANIES BAIL OBAMA OUT? AskAB returns Monday Nov. 18. Please join my weekly video Q&A by sending your questions and comments to askab@digital-staging.thehill.com. Thank you.
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