
The Left's latest talking point is that "only" five percent of the US insurance market is affected by President Obama's "keep your plan" lie. Left unmentioned is that this small-sounding slice of the population amounts to millions of human beings. But as Avik Roy and others have pointed out, the White House's go-to stat is a low ball estimate. The real number of affected Americans will be an order of magnitude higher than Obamacare's defenders are willing to concede. McClatchy's analysis concludes that tens of millions of Americans will experience the president's broken promise firsthand once the law is fully implemented:
It's impossible to waive away 52 million (or more) citizens as "anecdotes," or a rounding error. Will Harry Reid allow a vote on the "If You Like Your Plan, You Can Keep It" Act? NBC News and the Wall Street Journal have reported that the administration explicitly knew that the the president's categorical pledge was false. They chose to perpetrate the deception for cynical political purposes. This clip from 2010 demonstrates that Obama knew exactly what he was doing:
The president isn't surprised by, or sorry for, this outcome. His half-assed non-apology was nothing more than a naked attempt to change the subject. Beyond that, the notion that Americans losing their coverage are simply being "upgraded" to "better" plans simply isn't true for many. Click through for just a few examples of people being forced to pay more for inferior plans. And that's before we even consider countless Americans in the employer-based insurance market whose premiums and costs are increasing because of the law. That was another big presidential promise that won't pan out for tens of millions. Philip Klein andAllahpundit have argued that perhaps even more politically damaging than cancelled insurance plans will be the rash of people who will learn that their new, "better" plans won't let them keep their doctors -- which, naturally, Obama unequivocally told people they could. "Period." Access shock (Klein's term) has already started to rear its head in California, New York and New Hampshire. The dumped doctor problem is intensifying:
Democrats will try to shovel the blame onto insurers, but shifting fault from the chaotic and mandate-heavy "Affordable" Care Act will be a tall order. And angry senior citizens vote. Finally, Obamacare's fraud issues show no signs of subsiding. Beyond the security glitches and damning report showing that the administration knowingly moved ahead with a porous, vulnerable site, fraudsters are capitalizing on the current confusion and preying on innocent people. And as some website fixes are achieved, new snags have arisen -- with the White House's November 30 deadline less than three weeks away.
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