Democratic Oregon Rep. Kurt Schrader said President Barack Obama had made statements “grossly misleading to the American public” when he said repeatedly that “if you like your plan, you can keep it” under Obamacare.
“A lot of Americans, a lot of Oregonians, have stayed with the same policy for a number of years and are shocked that their policy got canceled,” Schrader said on KGW-TV, The Hill reports.
“So I think the president saying you could stay with it and not being honest that a lot of these policies were going to get canceled was grossly misleading to the American public and is causing added stress and added strife as we go through a really difficult time with health care,” Schrader added.
Democratic Minority Whip Steny Hoyer acknowledged two weeks ago that Democrats had been aware that some people might lose their insurance plans when the law took effect, saying, “We knew that there would be some policies that would not qualify and therefore people would be required to get more extensive coverage.”
At a Tuesday briefing with reporters, Hoyer said he disagreed with Schrader’s statement.
“Do I think he grossly misled? No,” Hoyer said.
“I think the president was not precise, and I think that, he should have been precise,” Hoyer said. “We all should have been more precise.”