Obama: My ‘Keep Your Plan’ Promise ‘Ended Up Not Being Accurate’

‘That’s something I deeply regret, because it’s scary getting a cancellation notice’

OBAMA: "With respect to the pledge I made if you like your plan, you can keep it. I've said in interviews that there is no doubt that the way I put that forward unequivocally ended up not being accurate. It was not because of my intention not to deliver on that commitment and that promise. We put a grandfather clause into the law but it was insufficient. Keep in mind that the individual market accounts for 5 percent of the population. So when I said you can keep your health care, I'm looking at folks who have employer-based health care, I'm looking at folks with Medicare and Medicaid and that accounts for the vast majority of Americans. And then for people who don't have any health insurance at all, obviously that didn't apply. My commitment to them was, you're going to be able to get affordable health care for the first time. You have an individual market that accounts for 5 percent of the population. Our working assumption was -- my working assumption was that the majority of those folks would find better policies at lower costs or the same costs in the marketplaces, and that the universe of folks who potentially would not find a better deal in the marketplaces, the grandfather clause would work sufficiently for them. And it didn't. And again, that's on us. That's on me. That's why I'm trying to fix it. As I said earlier, I guess last week, and I will repeat, that's something I deeply regret, because it's scary getting a cancellation notice."

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