Obama to tout healthcare law’s rebates in speech Thursday

{mosads}The rebates, which are valued, on average, at around $100 per recipient, will come from health insurance providers who violated the cap on overhead costs.

He also touted a front-page story in The New York Times that found residents of that state would see premiums halved for those buying individual insurance.

“There is a particular poignancy to this story today because for the 38th, 39th, 40th time — I’ve lost count, I think they have too — the House of Representatives will be voting to repeal the Affordable Care Act today,” Carney said.

House Republicans planned a vote Wednesday to delay the healthcare reform law’s employer and individual mandates, a response to the White House’s announcement earlier this month that it was unilaterally delaying the employer mandate for a year. Republicans have argued that individuals should be given the same break as corporations — which the administration said were struggling with the law’s bureaucracy — while White House officials say the system is ready to work for individual citizens.

“They go about the business again of trying to overturn a law that is providing enormous benefits,” Carney said, “and, as we’ve seen again, will provide even more benefits to the American [people]. We’re going about the business of implementing a law that provides those benefits.”

During a hearing Wednesday on Capitol Hill, House Republicans charged that the president’s healthcare law was unworkable and said corporations were receiving unfair benefits. 

“Why did you make a decision that Warren Buffett gets relief, but Joe Six-Pack doesn’t?” Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) asked J. Mark Iwry, the Treasury Department’s deputy assistant secretary for retirement and health policy.

Carney defended the individual mandate as “elemental” to the bill’s cost-saving measures, and said it enabled savings and benefits for the insured. 

“It is that provision which makes it possible for the marketplaces to work in a way that allows for us to assure Americans, by law, that if they have a pre-existing condition, they cannot be denied insurance,” Carney said. “Think about how significant that is for families across the country.”