Rep. Nick J. Rahall II, a 19-term veteran from a purple House district in West Virginia, is running scared.
His constituents are angered by reports that millions of Americans – including 8,800 West Virginians -- are losing their existing health care plans because they don’t meet the president’s health plan standards. Americans for Prosperity, a conservative political advocacy group with deep pockets, recently began airing TV ads in Rahall’s district blasting him for supporting passage of the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare.
So when President Obama announced on Thursday his proposed administrative “fix” to encourage state insurance commissioners and insurance firms to act to restore some of those cancelled health insurance plans, Rayhall was unimpressed.
Related: How Democrats Could Kill Obamacare
Like scores of other Democrats in the House and Senate, Rahall said he was “skeptical” of the presidential action and would prefer that lawmakers pass a strong measure to try to reverse as many of those cancellations as possible.
“I want to see how peace of mind will be delivered to my constituents,” he told reporters yesterday, adding that what’s needed is bipartisan legislation that rises above partisan one-upmanship.
“We should quit trying to score points on both sides of the aisle and try to fix this situation,” he said. “If it takes a legislative fix, let’s do a legislative fix together.”
And if that means siding on Friday with House Republicans in passing a bill that the White House opposes, “I’m keeping an open mind on it,” he said.
Panic has set in among Democrats over the administration’s disastrous launch of the Obamacare website and the controversy over the cancellation of so many individual policies, prompting lawmakers on both sides of the Capitol to scramble for political cover.
Stung by criticism that he misled the public about a key element of his health reform law, Obama announced a plan that would allow people with individual insurance policies to keep those policies for another year, regardless of whether the plans provides the minimum benefits mandated under Obamacare.
“There is no doubt that our failure to roll out the ACA smoothly has put a burden on Democrats, whether they are running or not,” Obama said at a White House news conference where he outlined his proposed “fix” and apologized again for “fumbling the ball” in the Obamacare rollout.
But the president’s proposal lacks teeth and would leave the final decision up to state regulators and insurance companies.
Related: 4 Things the White Hasn’t Told Us about Obamacare
Democrats – shocked by the administration’s ineptness in dealing with the crisis until now – believe they can no longer sit back and leave the damage control to the president and his advisers.
The president dispatched White House chief of staff Denis McDonough to brief Hill Democrats on the plan Thursday afternoon, but McDonough got a cool reception and practically no applause, according to Politico.
Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska) said yesterday that he is “not waiting for the president” to fix the problem of the widespread cancellations and will join a handful of other Senate Democrats to propose their own solution. Begich faces a tough reelection campaign next year and has come under fire in his home state for supporting the health care reform act.
“I am not waiting for the president’s promise. I want to see results,” Begich said on Fox and Friends. “Today we’re proposing another solution to that, and I think there is a great opportunity to move forward.”
Related: Obamacare October Scorecard: 106,185 Sign Up
Begich is teaming up with a handful of other endangered Senate Democrats who are pressing for passage of a bill that would require insurers to continue offering plans that were in existence this year – even if that means restoring policies that were already cancelled.
The bill was drafted by Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), and has the backing of Sens. Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Kay Hagen of North Carolina, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Dianne Feinstein of California. Landrieu, Pryor and Hagen all face uphill campaigns for reelection in 2014.
During a press conference after meeting for lunch with other Senate Democrats, Landrieu characterized Obama’s administrative fix as little more than “guidance” to states and insurers, and lacking real clout. “The president’s guidance is a great step forward,” she said. “But we probably will need legislation to make it stick.”
House leaders have scheduled a vote for today on a bill drafted by Rep. Fred Upton of Michigan and opposed by the administration that would allow insurance companies to indefinitely continue to offer the types of policies they recently canceled. The White House fears that the bill, if enacted, would undercut new standards for coverage contained in the Affordable Care Act.
The measure would also make the old policies available to new enrollees as well as to current ones. Some Democrats are so worried about a voter backlash next year against anyone who supported the Affordable Care Act that they will vote for the Upton plan to gain some political inoculation.
Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) told reporters that he would support the Upton measure. And Rep. Eliot L. Engel, a liberal Democrat from New York, said in an interview that he was keeping “an open mind” and might support a Republican proposal “if it’s not just another bill the Republicans are putting forward again to kill” Obamacare.
Surprisingly even House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (R-MD), briefly considered supporting the Upton plan before Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) decided to offer a Democratic alternative today more in line with the president’s proposal.
Top Reads at The Fiscal Times:
