It's always interesting when people in the “mainstream” press catch up to something conservatives and Republicans have known for a long time.
That was the case when Chris Frates, an investigative correspondent at the Cable News Network, reported on Friday that "Senate Democrats voted unanimously three years ago to support the ObamaCare rule that is largely responsible for some of the health insurance cancellation letters that are going out.”
“In September 2010, Senate Republicans brought a resolution to the floor to block implementation of the grandfather rule,” Frates wrote, “warning that it would result in cancelled policies and violate President Barack Obama’s promise that people could keep their insurance if they liked it.”
At that time, Chuck Grassley -- a Republican senator from Iowa -- stated:
The District of Columbia is an island surrounded by reality. Only in the District of Columbia could you get away with telling the people if you like what you have, you can keep it, and then pass regulations six months later that do just the opposite and figure that people are going to ignore it.
The administration's own regulations prove this is not the case. Under the grandfathering regulation, according to the White House's own economic impact analysis, as many as 69 percent of businesses will lose their grandfathered status by 2013 and be forced to buy government-approved plans,
Among those are Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Kay Hagan of North Carolina and Mark Begich of Alaska, “all of whom voted against stopping the rule from going into effect and have since supported delaying parts of ObamaCare,” he stated.
“The rule set up the criteria for what insurance plans would be grandfathered, or exempted, from the new ObamaCare requirements,” Frates wrote. “Democrats argued then that the rule was necessary to ensure that insurance companies weren’t able to drastically change their plans and still remain exempt from ObamaCare.”
As NewsBusters reported on Thursday, an article at Forbes.com charges that “Obama officials back in 2010 predicted that 93 million Americans would have their plans cancelled as a result of ObamaCare, including a vast amount of those with employer-sponsored plans.”
Soon after Frates's article was posted, several people posted their displeasure on Twitter and as our friends at Twitchy.com noted.
“Slowly but surely, CNN is catching on to what we’ve known for years: that maybe ObamaCare isn’t such a good idea after all,” the staff at twitchy.com stated. “And guess what: The Republicans were right all along!”
@HotlineJosh said that the three-year-old information was “breaking news at CNN: Scoop that Senate Dems supported rule that led to insurance cancellations.” Meanwhile, @billmurphy stated that “Senate Dems knew millions would receive cancellation notices because they voted for it.”
“Democrats 'had to lie' about ObamaCare because Americans never would have accepted the real truth,” @Bdayspring wrote, while @gjlama94 asked: “Wow … miscalculate much?”
@joshtpm saw a conspiracy in the program: “Curious that cancellations seem to be disproportionately hitting conservatives, wondering if it's an irs scandal-type thing.”
However, @RobGeorge responded: “There was report of 800,000 in New jersey losing policies. That can't solely be Republicans.”
“Democrats … how's that Kool-Aid tasting today?” @webhed17 asked before observing: “Amazing how this stuff comes out a year after the election!”
And @moelane's response to the CNN report was simple and to the point: "Good God.”
The twitchy.com staff then referred to an article at TalkingPointsMemo that said ObamaCare is doing Americans a favor by forcing insurance companies to cancel their plans. "Because the current plans don't meet ObamaCare's high standards or something.”
“Bull,” the staff responded. “The real reality is that with each passing day, more and more Americans are getting screwed by a law that Obama and the Democrats sold as a veritable life-saver.”
I guess we should be grateful that CNN is finally catching up with the rest of us, even if it did take an “an investigative correspondent” to dig up this three-year-old dirt. And they wonder why their ratings are still in the dumpster.
