Hastings Co-Sponsors Bill to Amend the ACA

Fourth District Congressman Doc Hastings doubts whether President Obama has the authority to head of the cancellations of millions of health care policies. Today Obama admitted that his administration has fumbled the rolout of the Affordable Care Act.  He said he wants to change the law to give insurance  companies the option to keep offering consumers plans that would otherwise  be canceled -- at least, for the next year.

Hastings tell KIT News that only Congress can change the law. "There's nothing in the law that gives the President, either this President or future presidents, any right to unilaterally change something that isn't working, this law isn't working because it is badly written, the government simply is not capable of running our health system and we are seeing that unfortunately and so this is the President responding to political pressure."

A similar bill is being proposed in the US Senate. Hastings says the President is only providing political coverage to Democrats who have to run for re-election next November.

The health insurance industry's main trade group says the president's offer to head off millions of health policy cancellations comes too late. America's Health Insurance Plans says member companies have already set premiums for next year based on the assumption that many people with current individual coverage will shift into the new markets created under the health care law. The group says allowing people to keep plans that don't comply with the law now could destabilize the market and lead to higher premiums.