President Barack Obama, campaigning for his health care law,
said Thursday that thanks to the act, more than 8.5 million Americans were
getting rebates this summer from their insurance providers.
Obama was flanked by families who have benefitted from a
provision in the law, which requires health insurers to spend at least 80
percent of the revenue from premiums on medical care rather than administrative
costs. Insurers who fail to meet that
benchmark must reimburse customers, a process that began in 2012.
“Last year, millions of Americans opened letters from their
insurance companies, but instead of the usual dread that comes with getting a
bill, they were pleasantly surprised with a check,” Obama said in a midday
ceremony at the White House.
The checks typically amount to no more than a few hundred
dollars. But the president, recounting
stories of middle-class families arrayed on the stage behind him, celebrated
these modest windfalls as an early sign of the tangible benefits of the law.
Republicans
did not let up on Thursday, claiming that the benefits tolled by Obama would be
more than offset by higher costs.
With the Republican-controlled House of Representatives
voting yet again this week to repeal the Affordable Care Act, however, the
president seized on new statistics that demonstrate the law is driving down
premiums in some states.
The Department of Health and Human Services just released a
report asserting that, in 11 states and the District of Columbia, proposed
health insurance premiums for 2014 are nearly 20 percent lower than the
administration projected.
“Today’s report shows that the Affordable Care Act is
working to increase transparency and competition among health insurance plans
and drive premiums down,” Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human
services, said in a statement.
Thursday’s carefully choreographed even in the East Room was
intended to put the White House back on the offensive on health care after it
was forced to delay the employer mandate, which requires companies with more
than 50 employees to offer health insurance, or pay a penalty.
The delay came after heavy pressure from businesses, which said
the law was too complex and cumbersome to implement on time.
Mark Landler, New York
Times, July 19, 2013.
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