Obama threatens to veto bill exempting people who lose Obamacare insurance

The White House issued a veto threat Tuesday against a House measure that addresses the failure of about two-thirds of the co-op insurers under the Affordable Care Act by exempting people who lost their coverage.

The legislation is “unnecessary given consumer protections already available,” the White House said. And President Obama believes the measure “would create a bad precedent” for exempting people from the individual-responsibility provision in the health care law.

The proposal “would be a step in the wrong direction, because it would create a precedent that undermines a key part of the [Obamacare] law and would do nothing to help middle-class families obtain affordable health care,” the statement said.

“The individual-responsibility provision is a necessary part of a system that prohibits discrimination against individuals with pre-existing conditions and requires guaranteed issuance,” the White House said. “The provision helps prevent people from waiting until they get sick to buy health insurance or dropping health insurance when they believe they do not need it. Weakening the individual responsibility provision would increase health insurance premiums and decrease the number of Americans with coverage.”

The House Ways and Means Committee earlier this month approved the Republican-sponsored bill that would exempt people from the individual mandate to purchase health insurance if they lost coverage because the co-op through which they bought a plan folded in mid-year.

Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, Texas Republican, said about 750,000 families have had their coverage disrupted by the closure of 16 of the 23 co-ops created under the 2010 health care law.

Under the bill, consumers would be required to sign up for coverage during the next enrollment period.

“It’s only right to offer immediate relief from this tax penalty to Americans who lost their insurance — or lose it in the future — due to the colossal failures of the co-op program,” Mr. Brady said.