Posted on November 7, 2013

Carney vs. Karl: White House Unable To Point To Quote Obama Claims He Made On Obamacare

JON KARL: On Monday the president said that f you had one of these plans before the Affordable Care Act came into law, you really like that plan, what we have said is that you can keep it if it hasn't changed since the law was passed. I'm wondering, could you give me a citation of when the president ever said such a thing.



JAY CARNEY: Sure, we went through this the other day, the president was referring to the law, and I can obviously point you to the law, and people who covered it and wrote it.



KARL: But he says, "what we have said." When did he actually say that?



CARNEY: I understand, John, and I answered this the other day. I understand the point you're trying to make, John. What I said is that he was referring to the law, and to the publishing of the rule, which was covered, again, by news organizations. About the grandfathering clause, where Kathleen Sebelius and others were quoted.



The fact of the matter is, as you know, the vast majority of the American people already receive health insurance through their employer, or Medicare or Medicaid or through the Veterans Administration. 15% of the country is uninsured. And because of the expansion of Medicaid or the marketplaces, they have available to them quality affordable health insurance for the first time.



Five percent of the country gets its insurance on the individual market. The law is written so that those who had plans when the law was passed could have those plans grandfathered in, and the point -- I understand that there's a lot of discussion about this, and, but if you had that plan before the law passed, you're grandfathered in.



What is absolutely the case is in the market itself, in that section of the insurance market, the individual insurance market, there is a tremendous amount of turnover, and there always has been. People come in and out of that market, their policies are routinely changed or adjusted, often downgraded. In this case if you had a plan that was downgraded, and therefore, a plan that already did not meet ACA standards that was grandfathered in was made even less compliant with minimum standards, then it would not be grandfathered in.