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 "Since I'm in charge, obviously we screwed it up," Obama said at
his year-end news conference.
Officials said late on Thursday that people whose insurance plans
were canceled because of new standards under the law may claim a
"hardship exemption" to the requirement that all Americans must have
coverage by March 31, or face a penalty.
The sudden change was announced four days before the federal
government's deadline to sign up for coverage that starts on January
1 under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which was
passed in 2010 and set up online exchanges, or marketplaces, for
enrollment.
Republicans seized on the latest announcement as further proof that
the law known as Obamacare is unworkable, but Obama said it was just
a bump in the road.
"I've said before, this is a messy process," Obama told reporters
before leaving for Hawaii for the holidays.
Obama said he did not think the waiver for "a relatively small
number" of people would shake confidence in the law. "This is
essentially an additional net in case folks might have slipped
through the cracks," he said.
Obama, whose public approval numbers have dropped to historic lows
over the health law's debut, focused on a surge in enrollment in
December that was a big improvement on the months since the
HealthCare.gov website opened on October 1.
He said that more than 1 million people have signed up so far for
new coverage under Obamacare through HealthCare.gov, which serves 36
states, and 14 state-run marketplaces.
More than half of the signups came from the federal website during a
December rush, he said. "The basic structure of that law is working.
Despite all the problems, despite the website problems, despite the
messaging problems, despite all that, it's working," Obama told
reporters.
Still, there are lingering problems. Consumers were unable to access
HealthCare.gov for a few hours on Friday, a critical time before the
December 23 deadline. Officials said they needed to repair a website
error that occurred overnight.
"BEGINNING OF THE END"
Part of the backlash against the policy came when millions of people
received policy cancellation notices, forcing Obama to apologize for
a promise he made that people who liked their insurance policies
could keep them under the reforms.
U.S. officials estimated that fewer than 500,000 people would be
affected by the new delay in the so-called individual mandate. The
mandate is a core part of the law that aims to provide coverage to
millions of uninsured Americans.
The announcement raises fairness questions, however, because it
gives a subset of Americans relief from the requirement to buy
insurance. "It is the beginning of the end of the individual
mandate," said Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.
Republicans have opposed the healthcare law as an unwarranted
expansion of the federal government.
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"DISRUPTION FOR CONSUMERS"
Insurance industry trade group, America's Health Insurance Plans,
criticized the change that could divert more consumers away from the
new plans offered under Obamacare.
"This latest rule change could cause significant instability in the
marketplace and lead to further confusion and disruption for
consumers," AHIP President and CEO Karen Ignagni said in a
statement.
Legal experts said it was unclear whether the change would spawn
successful legal challenges. Nicholas Bagley, law professor at
University of Michigan, said he doubted individuals who are
ineligible for the exemption could sue, claiming it was unfair that
others received the break.
"You can't usually complain that someone else received a benefit
that you didn't get and that caused you injury. That's not how
courts typically rule."
Still, the change adds confusion for consumers so close to the
December 23 sign-up date, a deadline that could triple demand and
strain enrollment systems.
The deadline has already been complicated by the decision from a
handful of states who run their own insurance marketplaces to extend
the sign-up deadline past the December 23 date set by the federal
government. MNsure, the insurance marketplace in Minnesota, said on
Friday that consumers would have until December 31 to select a plan
for coverage beginning January 1.
In the law, there are 14 categories of "hardships" that can be used
to get an exemption from the mandate to buy insurance, such as a
recent eviction or bankruptcy.
But this is the first exemption prompted by the administration's
botched rollout of the law after months of insistence that there
would be no delays in implementing the individual mandate. The
administration has already pushed back by one year the mandate for
employers.
The change announced late Thursday was suggested by a group of
Democratic senators, some of whom face difficult re-election
campaigns in 2014.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a
letter to the senators that those people who receive the exemption
will have the option to buy "catastrophic" insurance plans — cheaper
insurance with a minimal coverage level that, under the law, is
normally available only to people under the age of 30.
(Additional reporting by Susan Heavey, Jackie Frank, Caroline Humer,
Terry Baynes and Lewis Krauskopf; Writing by Karey Van Hall; editing
by Christopher Wilson and Grant McCool)
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