Bill Clinton: Let insured keep their health policy

WASHINGTON -- Former President Bill Clinton said President Barack Obama should accept changes to his health care law if that's what it takes to fulfill his promise that Americans who like their health insurance can keep it.

Clinton stepped into the debate over how to fix the flawed rollout of a central element of the law days before a vote in the Republican-controlled House on a measure that would let individuals keep their health care plans into next year without penalty.

"Even if it takes a change to the law, the president should honor the commitment the federal government made to those people and let them keep what they've got," Clinton said in an interview posted yesterday by Ozy.com, a news website.

Obama's pledge was a central selling point of his health care law, aimed at calming consumers concerned that they would be forced to give up their policies and doctors as the program expanded coverage to many of the nation's 48 million uninsured.

As the enrollment period opened, hundreds of thousands of Americans received notices from their insurers that their policies were being canceled because they didn't meet the standards set under the law.

House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio said Clinton's comments "signify a growing recognition that Americans were misled when they were promised that they could keep their coverage under President Obama's health care law."

While Clinton generally praised the health care act, saying "we're better off with this law than without it," Boehner called it "a train wreck that needs to go."

White House press secretary Jay Carney repeated that the administration was looking at options "that would address this problem" administratively.

He declined to say whether Obama would be open to legislation that changed the law.

The insurance cancellations for a portion of people who buy policies on the open market came on top of technical faults with the federal website intended to serve as the portal to insurance marketplaces for 36 states that don't have their own.

The website flaws have hobbled the start of the six-month enrollment period that began Oct. 1, and the administration said it expects that the number of people who get policies through the exchanges will be lower than expected.

The Wall Street Journal, citing two unidentified people familiar with the matter, reported that fewer than 50,000 people had successfully signed up for an insurance plan.

Carney said he couldn't confirm that number and said the administration plans to release enrollment data by the end of the week.

Clinton said younger, healthy Americans who bought policies on the individual market and earn incomes above 400 percent of the poverty level are primarily affected by the insurance cancellations.