"If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan" said President Obama on August 11, 2009. However, hundreds of thousands of families are having their health insurance policies canceled right now. These folks are being told they have to sign up for new insurance through the Obamacare exchange, which is currently not operational.
Florida Blue, for example, is terminating about 300,000 policies, about 80 percent of its individual policies in the state. Kaiser Permanente in California has sent notices to 160,000 people - about half of its individual business in the state. Insurer Highmark in Pittsburgh is dropping about 20 percent of its individual market customers, while Independence Blue Cross, the major insurer in Philadelphia, is dropping about 45 percent.
For the families who had these policies these cancellations are a major life-changing event. Despite any opposition to Obamacare, one can only hope that these families are not too severely impacted by this completely avoidable disruption to their health care.
