Sebelius: Obama Is ‘Keeping His Promise’ on Keeping Health Plans You Like

‘They absolutely will have new coverage’

BLACKBURN: “Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Madame Secretary, during, before, during and after the law was passed the president kept saying, ‘If you like your health care plan, you can keep it.’ So is he keeping his promise?”
SEBELIUS: “Yes, he is.”
BLACKBURN: “Okay. What do you say to 300,000 people in Florida you just mentioned or to the 28,000 in Tennessee that cannot get health insurance? Their plans are terminated. Is he keeping his promise to them?”
SEBELIUS: “Well, first of all, Congresswoman, they can get health insurance. They must be offered new plans, new options, either inside the market marketplace or if they don't qualify for a financial subsidy they can shop—“
BLACKBURN: “—But what do you say?—“
SEBELIUS: “--Inside or outside of the marketplace. They absolutely will have new coverage.—“
BLACKBURN: “--What do you say to NBC news who says millions are going to lose their coverage?”
SEBELIUS: “Well, in all deference to the press core, many of whom are here today, I think that it's important to be accurate about what is going on and I would defer again to the president of the Blues plan—“
BLACKBURN: “—Okay, reclaiming—“
SEBELIUS: “—They will have ongoing coverage. They will be offered new plans—“
BLACKBURN: “—Madame Secretary, let me tell you something—“
SEBELIUS: “—[unintelligible] in the market right now will qualify for federal subsidies—“
BLACKBURN: “--What do you say to Mark and Lucinda in my district who had a plan, they liked it, it was affordable but it is being terminated and now they do not have health insurance.”
SEBELIUS: “Insurance companies [unintelligible] individual policies year in, year out. They are a one-year contract with individuals. They are not lifetime plans.—“
BLACKBURN: “—Let me.—“
SEBELIUS: “--They are not an employer plan. Your constituents will have—“
BLACKBURN: “--Let me move on. It’s what they wanted. And I will remind you, some people like to drive a Ford, not a Ferrari and some people like to drink out of a red solo cup, not a crystal stem. You’re taking away their choice. Let's put the screen shot up. I want to go to the cost of the website and talk about the website. This is what's happening right now with this website. We’ve had somebody in the back trying to sign on. It is down. It is not working. Last week I asked for the cost from each of the contractors that were with us last week. So can you give me a ballpark of what you have spent on this website that does not work that individuals cannot get to? What is your cost estimate?”
SEBELIUS: “So far, Congresswoman, we have spent about $118 million on the website itself and about $56 million has been expended on other IT to support the web.”
BLACKBURN: “Okay, would you submit a detailed accounting of exactly what has been spent and when do you expect constituents to stop getting these kind of error messages?”
SEBELIUS: “Again, I was with the, um, talked to the president of Verizon over the weekend on two occasions. Verizon hosts the cloud, which is not part of the website. It is a host for a number of websites…”

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