Get ready for another round of health plan cancellations

There’s another round of health insurance policy cancellations coming, and the timing is more than a little awkward for vulnerable Senate Democrats, including Mark Begich (D-AK) and Kay Hagan (D-NC), who will learn their electoral fate next month.

While President Obama promised Americans that "if you like your plan, you can keep it," millions of Americans lost their health insurance coverage last year due to regulations promulgated by Obama administration bureaucrats. The "grandfathered plan" rules were written so narrowly that almost any policy change would require a customer to purchase a plan that meets the coverage requirements of ObamaCare.

The Morning Consult reports that there’s another wave of health insurance cancellations looming in several states before November. Though not as large as last year’s wave, The Hill pegs the number of cancellations at around 50,000. This means that some 800 Alaskans and at least 75 North Carolinians will lose the health plans that they and their families had and liked.

Much of the focus on the health insurance cancellations has been on President Obama’s now-infamous promise, which PolitiFact called 2013’s "Lie of the Year," but what hasn’t been often mentioned are Democrats who, during the legislative debate over ObamaCare in 2009 and 2010, repeated the line.

Begich made the promise on at least six different occasions. In a December 2009 press release, for instance, Begich said, "Alaskans who have health insurance now, and are happy with it, can keep it."

Hagan repeated the line to her constituents at least 24 times. During a July 2009 hearing, Hagan said, "I think the fundamental promise of this effort to the American people has been and continue to be that if you got health insurance now, you’re happy with it, you can keep it."

That was a "fundamental promise" that President Obama and congressional Democrats never intended to keep. In September 2010, Begich and Hagan joined Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and their Democratic colleagues to block legislation that would’ve allowed people to keep the health insurance coverage that they had and liked.

Begich and Hagan have tried to shape their own narrative, expressing disappointment over the rollout of ObamaCare and claiming ignorance to the regulations that caused the cancellations.

Despite the faux outrage, these two Senate Democrats, who stubbornly continue to defend ObamaCare in the face of opinion polls showing that their constituents oppose the law, helped create this situation, one that has been a big headache for many hardworking Alaskans and North Carolinians. And, unfortunately, with yet another round of health insurance policy cancellations, it’s a problem that isn’t going away.

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