Chuck Todd to White House: Why Wasn’t ‘Catastrophic’ Option Mentioned Yesterday?

TODD: “Can I ask a sort of a process question? Yesterday afternoon a bunch of senior Administration officials at the White House gathered reporters to give an update and brief people about what was going on with the law. But somehow this change was not included in the briefing. You guys waited until late last night. Why not -- if you were going to have a health care briefing on the implementation of the law, why leave this frankly big news out of that briefing? It just seemed odd.”
SIMAS: “So Chuck, nothing odd about it. It was an extensive briefing. Went over a myriad of subjects about transitions. Talking about all of the outreach that we're doing to different individuals both in December, talking about January. We talked about enrollment and we talked about what we're seeing.”
TODD: “But you didn't talk about a new catastrophic policy that was going to be made available to people.”
SIMAS: “And so there -- Chuck, as you know, the exemption is built into the law -- are built into the law. There’s always been a hardship exemption. People are now aware that there is this different option that came out of HHS as a result of a letter from the United States senators who asked for a clarification. That clarification was given and we move forward from this point.”