President's Coverage Promise Is No Keeper

President's Coverage Promise Is No Keeper

By David S. Hilzenrath
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 17, 2009

President Obama promises that, if health-care reform is enacted, people will be able to keep their current coverage.

"I keep on saying this but somehow folks aren't listening: If you like your health-care plan, you keep your health-care plan. Nobody is going to force you to leave your health-care plan," he said Saturday in a town hall meeting in Grand Junction, Colo., much as he said Friday in Belgrade, Mont., and earlier in the week in Portsmouth, N.H.

However, under legislation drafted by House and Senate Democrats, that would not necessarily be true.

Legislation written by three House committees and the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions would allow eligible employers to move workers into a new marketplace for insurance, where they could choose from various coverage options.

In the marketplace, called an exchange or gateway, employees could end up with more and better options, analysts say. Even a top Republican staffer to the Senate committee, who is not authorized to speak for the record, agrees with that assessment. But Democratic legislative aides said there is no assurance that any of the options offered in the exchange would be the same as employees' current coverage.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/16/AR2009081601887.html?hpid=topnews

Thats part of the problem with our reliance on employer provided health care.

Obama's plan. they do it anyway. duh.