WASHINGTON, DC - House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI) issued the following statement regarding the administration’s decision to again work around Congress to delay and change the president’s health care law. The Department of Health and Human Services today announced that health care plans otherwise deemed “substandard " or “junk " by the administration could continue to be offered through 2016. Reports that this new delay was on the horizon surfaced yesterday.
“It’s fitting that just as the House was voting to provide fairness for all Americans, the Obama administration was furiously backtracking to delay the president’s broken promises until the end of the second term to duck responsibility," said Upton. “The administration cannot run fast enough away from its broken promises. The administration’s lack of accountability throughout this law’s passage and implementation is cause for alarm. While the president assails Congress for voting to protect all Americans from the disastrous law, the administration has acted dozens of times over the last year to unilaterally delay or change the law because it was not ready for prime time."
The president first announced this “fix" in November after a broad, bipartisan majority in Congress voiced their support for Upton’s Keep Your Health Plan Act - legislation the White House threatened to veto. The president failed to act for months as millions of Americans across the country learned that they could not count on his promise of “If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what." In fact, the administration knew for years that it could not keep this promise.
