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It’s true that President Obama said if you like your current health plan, you could keep it.
But it’s also true the law was designed to phase out policies that don’t include new consumer protections.
When that finally started happening this fall, Obama had to deal with confusion and blowback.
“We weren’t as clear as we needed to be in terms of the changes that are taking place.”
That was the president on NBC two weeks ago.
Now his supporters are pushing back against the negative coverage. Families USA is a nonprofit advocacy group that supports the law.
The group analyzed who would be affected.
After excluding seniors on Medicare, it found only 5.7 percent of Americans have individual health plans they purchase on their own.
Ron Pollock is the group’s president.
He says most of those people will be eligible for federal subsidies if they have to get a new individual plan in the marketplace.
Only 29 percent make too much to get a subsidy.
“This is truly a tiny portion of those people who will be affected by the Affordable Care Act.”
The report estimates that in Texas, there are about 300,000 people in that situation.
But Pollock predicts even if some of them have to pay a higher premium, they will be satisfied in the long run:
“When you get better coverage, you wind up paying less on the back end because you have less out-of-pocket obligations and deductibles and co-pays.”
But Pollock says that won’t really be clear until the HealthCare.gov website starts working more smoothly.