Representative Todd Young of Indiana uses Republican party's weekly address to lambast president in latest assault on reforms
Republicans continued their assault on Obamacare on Saturday, accusing the president of "betraying" Americans who are losing their existing healthcare plans.
Representative Todd Young of Indiana used the Republican party's weekly address to pass on stories from residents in his state who say their insurance has been cancelled or is becoming more expensive because of the Affordable Care Act.
"This is what betrayal looks like. Here you have hard-working people who were repeatedly told not to worry, that their coverage would stay the same and if anything their costs would go down. Just the opposite's happening," said Young. "Adding insult to injury, the White House, the president, isn't levelling with us. He's trying to cover his tracks, claiming he never really made these promises."
President Obama had repeatedly assured Americans in speeches over the past four years that if they liked their insurance plans they could keep them. However, on Monday he attempted to qualify that statement, saying: "What we said was you can keep it if it hasn't changed since the law passed." That led to accusations that Obama had misled the public.
On Thursday, he told NBC News: "I am sorry that they are finding themselves in this situation based on assurances they got from me … We've got to work hard to make sure that they know we hear them and we are going to do everything we can to deal with folks who find themselves in a tough position as a consequence of this."
A day earlier, Obama used a meeting with activists in Dallas to offer assurances that the technical problems with the HealthCare.gov online exchange would be fixed. Kathleen Sebelius, the Health and Human Services secretary, acknowledged to a Senate committee on Wednesday that enrollment figures for the first month would be very low when they are released next week.
A California Republican, Representative Darrell Issa, the House oversight committee chairman, issued a subpoena on Friday calling Todd Park, the White House chief technology officer, to testify before a committee next week.
The Republican-led House of Representatives is expected to vote next week on a bill called the Keep Your Health Plan Act, which proposes extending some individual plans for another year, giving more people time to shop using the online marketplace. Americans required by the Affordable Care Act to have some form of health coverage face a fine from the IRS if they are not signed up by the end of March, 2014.
Young hopes to stall that penalty with his own proposal. "I've authored a bill to delay this law's individual mandate tax," he said. "After all, how can you tax people for not buying a product from a website that doesn't work?"
The president steered clear of healthcare in his weekly address on Saturday, which focused on military veterans ahead of Monday's Veterans Day.
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