Update: Here’s the transcript of the full exchange. Is this really an apology?
CHUCK TODD:
Thanks to you. I’ll start with health care. It’s probably the most quoted thing or requoted thing you have said in your presidency, “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it.” You said it a lot during the run up. At this point, though, it’s obviously something– a promise that has not been able to be kept. Just today, the Denver Post — 250,000 people in Colorado are seeing health insurance policies cancelled. Some of those people liked those policies. And they can’t keep them. What happened?
PRESIDENT OBAMA:
Well– first of all, I meant what I said. And we worked hard to try to make sure that we implemented it properly. But obviously, we didn’t do enough– a good enough job– and I regret that. We’re talking about 5% of the population– who are in what’s called the individual market. They’re out there buying health insurance on their own.
A lot of these plans are subpar plans. And we put in a clause in the law that said if you had one of those plans, even if it was subpar– when the law was passed, you could keep it. But there’s enough churn in the market that folks since then have bought subpar plans. And now that may be all they can afford. So even though it only affects a small amount of the population, you know, it means a lot to them, obviously, when they get– this letter cancelled.
Follow the link. He goes on and on and on from there about how much “better” the new plans on the exchanges are. And you know what he means by that: “Better” = more comprehensive, period. Cost and access to a sizable provider network are almost entirely irrelevant to the calculus. No one seriously believes that, including him, but he needs to pretend in order to justify pushing healthy people into more expensive coverage. Comprehensiveness is mainly just the excuse to gouge them for higher premiums. He’s not sorry at all that people’s plans are being canceled.
