Accountability for Obamacare

The old adage “a picture is worth a thousand words” was on full display during HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’s testimony on Capitol Hill Wednesday. The television showed a split screen. On one side was the Secretary proclaiming that Healthcare.gov has never crashed. On the other side was an image of the crashed Obamacare website, which was down for the duration of her three hour testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

The split screen picture said it all: The Obama administration says one thing; the facts say the opposite.

There’s no more striking example of this than President Obama’s oft-delivered promise that if you like your health insurance plan you can keep it—a central tenet to his sales pitch for Obamacare.

Now try telling that promise to the growing number of Americans receiving health insurance cancellation notices in the mail. 140,000 in Minnesota. 140,000 in Michigan. 279,000 in California. 300,000 in Florida. 800,000 in New Jersey. Sadly, cancellation letters in more states are sure to come.

Adding to the outrage, NBC News reported this week the Obama administration knew for more than three years that millions of Americans would lose their existing health care plans, yet continued to promise the American people that if they liked their existing plan or doctor they could keep them.

Now President Obama and his allies are spinning that broken promise to include a gigantic caveat: You can keep your plan as long as his administration likes it. Translation: Washington bureaucrats know better than families and doctors what’s best for their health care.

In addition to the cancellation letters, we already see examples of Obamacare’s main features starting to take effect all over the country. Insurance premiums and deductibles are skyrocketing. Businesses are cutting full-time jobs to less than 30 hours per week to avoid Obamacare’s penalty. And many workers are being laid off altogether.

As President Obama’s poll numbers drop, he would be wise to take up commonsense proposals.

Instead of coercing Americans to buy a product they don’t want at a price they can’t afford from a website that doesn’t work, let’s give them more health-care choices and make Obamacare voluntary.

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