CNN's Gupta on ObamaCare Dropping Millions from Health Plans: 'It Hasn't Been Explained Very Well'
CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta – who was once considered for President Obama's
surgeon general – gave cover to President Obama Wednesday in explaining
his broken promise that Americans could keep their insurance.
"It hasn't been explained very well," Gupta said of millions who will be dropped from their health plans and who must buy insurance in the ObamaCare marketplaces. He also failed to note that Obama made his promise after the health care bill was signed into law, even though its provisions would force insurance companies to drop many health plans.
[Video below the break. Audio here.]
"Well, the disconnect is there was a law passed in between," Gupta said
of Obama's 2009 promise and the 2010 health care law. Except on April 1, 2010
– nine days after Obama signed the ACA into law – the President said
that "if you like your insurance plan, you will keep it. No one will be
able to take that away from you. It hasn't happened yet. It won't happen
in the future."
So the President made the guarantee after his law was official, which
would eventually force insurance companies to change many plans. Gupta's
explanation seemed to give the President wiggle room that he only made
his promise before the law was official.
Gupta listed the positives of the law (for those not being dropped from their insurance). He added that it's "overstating it" to say that the website's problems "are emblematic of a disaster unfolding."
Below is a transcript of the segment, which aired on CNN Newsroom on October 30 at 3:54 p.m. EDT:
[3:54]
JAKE TAPPER: But one of the big issues right now is people talking
about President Obama's promise to voters in 2009 and afterwards, if you
like your health plan, you can keep your health plan. If you like your
doctor, you can keep your doctor. And all of a sudden all these people
are getting notices from their insurance companies canceling their
plans. What's the disconnect here?
SANJAY GUPTA: Well, the disconnect is there was a law passed in between
and as part of that law, the Affordable Care Act, it says people cannot
be charged higher premiums because they developed an illness, they
cannot have lifetime caps on how much the insurance will pay out. And
there were plans that existed before the law was passed, Jake, that had
those things. They could increase premiums. They did have caps. So those
plans are essentially not available anymore. They're technically
illegal plans. And if people had those plans, those are the plans that
are no longer available and they're being told they have got to get a
new plan. It hasn't been explained very well. And you're talking about
15 million people who buy insurance on their own, about half of those
people are probably going to fall under this idea of getting their plans
canceled because their plans don't meet criteria as they stand now.
TAPPER: And Sanjay, just staying with you for a second, obviously some
of plans were what are called "mini-meds," not very comprehensive plans
and they are now being forced to buy plans that are more comprehensive
that the ObamaCare law mandates are more comprehensive. But not all of
them fit that criteria, right?
GUPTA: No. There's different levels, different tiers of plans, first of
all. But in terms of what people have to – or are being asked to buy or
have to buy, mandated to buy, yeah, you're right, they don't all
necessarily fit that criteria. But I think in some ways, Jake, that is
the nature of insurance. Like you don't know for sure what you're going
to need until you need it. And a lot of these things are group plans. So
there's a lot been made, for example, of males buying coverage that
covers maternity care and stuff like that. Part of a group, part of a
society, part of a community, everyone's paying in to cover those things
for the larger chunk of people. Otherwise it would just be pregnant
women who suddenly have high premiums when they become pregnant. So
that's the nature of insurance. And again, I don't think this has been
explained very well to people. That's part of the disconnect.
TAPPER: And Gloria, one of the issues, I think – I asked President
Obama about this in 2009, as a White House correspondent, about this,
"If you like your plan, you can keep your plan." And he explained what
he meant by that was the government is not going to force you to get a
different health care plan. Although of course the government could
create a whole scenario, a whole situation where your insurance company
or your business forces you. I guess it's –
BORGER: Blame it on insurance companies.
TAPPER: – live by the sales pitch, die by the sales pitch. Well – I
mean that's what they're doing right now. But the idea is maybe if the
promise hasn't been as stark in 2009 and afterwards, maybe they wouldn't
be facing these questions today.
GLORIA BORGER: Right. And I think the wording is unfortunate. I think
now the blame is going to shift. We'll see some blame-shifting going on
to the insurance companies. And I think to Sanjay's point is that they
had three years to explain risk pools to people, to tell young people
why they need to kind of buy into this plan and young single men who are
not married, why perhaps they ought to have maternity policy on their
policy, so it will take care of some of their needs.
And so I think this whole notion of risk pool is something that people
don't really understand and how they will be getting a better policy and
in exchange for a little bit more money. Nobody's going to ask you
about a pre-existing condition. So I do think the kind of – for an
administration that's been pretty good at salesmanship when it comes to
campaigns, I'm surprised this campaign wasn't better.
TAPPER: And Sanjay, obviously, we in the media, we don't cover the
1,000 airplanes that land on time and perfectly safely. We are paying a
lot of attention right now to people who are upset about ObamaCare,
people having problems with the website, people having issues with the
fact that they're being kicked off their plans and being told they he
have to buy new plans that are more expensive or have higher
deductibles. But there are people benefitting from ObamaCare and we
should take a moment to at least acknowledge that fact and talk about
that.
GUPTA: I think it's a very fair point, Jake. And look, when we talked
about this health care reform, I think a better description would have
been insurance reform. You've talked about this, I've talked about it.
But this idea that insurance reform offers protections to people who
aren't joining the marketplace. So all the rest of us, people who have
their insurance through their employers right now who are watching, they
get some benefit in the sense that they, for example, preventive care
now doesn't cost anything, that is free. You mentioned people being able
to stay on their parents' plan up until age 26, that's for everybody,
not just people joining the marketplace. But also this idea that
insurance companies can't cap how much they'll pay out. If someone gets
sick, you can get to your annual cap pretty quickly. You can get to your
lifetime cap pretty quickly. That can't happen anymore. And again,
those are benefits for everybody. So yeah, a lot of people are making a
lot of this website. I interviewed the Secretary about this last week,
we had a very candid conversation about. But the idea that it's
emblematic of a disaster unfolding, I think is probably overstating it.
— Matt Hadro is a News Analyst at the Media Research Center. Follow Matt Hadro on Twitter.
