Looks like Colorado Sen. Mark Udall is the latest in a growing list of Democrats racing to put some distance between themselves and the Obamacare insurance cancellation debacle. He’s proposing a bill — the Continuous Coverage Act — to allow Americans in the individual insurance market to keep their coverage for two years.
Former Pres. Bill Clinton set the example Tuesday when he suggested during an interview that something be done to allow people to keep the insurance plans that were canceled by the Affordable Care Act:
I personally believe, even if it takes changing the law, the president should honor the commitment the federal government made to those people and let them keep what they got.
Obama has said he’s looking for solutions for those people, the ones he promised could keep their coverage if they liked it. Meanwhile the Republicans see an opportunity to make political hay and are drafting their own law to deal with the problem. Obama has until Friday to come up with something or the Republicans will take action. Democrats, seeing their own re-election chances at risk, are scrambling to cover themselves. Many are threatening to join the Republicans or, like Sen. Udall, are proposing their own fixes.
The president, of course, is not up for re-election and seems to be in no rush to change, weaken, or delay any portion of his own law. But while he fiddles and Obamacare burns, his reputation for honesty is sinking:
Overall, 47 percent of people said words like “honest and trustworthy” do not apply to Obama, while 51 percent would not describe him as a “strong and decisive” leader.
Meantime, In the wings we have people betting on whether the HealthCare.gov website will be fixed by the end of November as promised — said promise having emanated from the same knowledgable people who said the website would be ready for business on October 1. Let’s hope that while they are trying to fix the website they are also preparing a Plan B for when it still doesn’t work.
This entire boondoggle would all be hugely entertaining, downright laughable, if it weren’t so vitally important to those who lost their health insurance coverage — estimated by Republicans to be some 10 million Americans … but by Democrats to be “only” 5% of the US insurance market.