White House spokesman Jay Carney blamed the nation’s health-insurance companies Tuesday for President Barack Obama’s broken promise that Americans could keep their doctors after the Obamacare network becomes operational in January.
“The reality of the insurance system that we’ve seen over the years is that these plans change all the time,” Carney insisted. “This is not a government-run insurance program.”
So “if you are purchasing insurance on the marketplace, you have a variety of options available to you, [and] the more comprehensive plans tend to have broader networks,” he said about the government-directed Obamacare network.
“That reflects the way the private insurance system has long worked,” he said.
Insurance companies are cutting doctors and shrinking their networks of specialists to help pay for the expensive medical benefits mandated by Obamacare. For example, the UnitedHealth Group is slicing thousands of doctors from its Medicare Advantage programs, according to many media reports.
Those cancellation directly contradict Obama’s promises to Americans that they could keep their doctors.
“No matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise: if you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period,” Obama said in 2009.
“You can keep your doctor, you can keep your plan. Nobody is talking about taking that away from you,” Obama said in July 2009.
Obama’s poll numbers have already been forced down to the low 40s following the public’s discovery that Obama was lying when he told them many times that they could keep their favored insurance plans after the Obamacare network was established.
Over the last two months, more than four million individual health-insurance policies have been canceled by the Obamacare regulations.
Obama and his deputies initially tried to blame the insurance companies for the canceled policies in the individual market, even though government studies predicted most policies would be barred by Obamacare.
On Nov. 7 and 14, Obama grudgingly and indirectly apologized for his deception about the canceled insurance polices.
“I am sorry that they are finding themselves in this situation based on assurances they got from me,” Obama told MSNBC’s Chuck Todd on Nov. 7.
Obama has not commented on the increasing number of cases where his regulations will block Americans’ access to their favorite doctors.