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Democrats Spin Obama's Debunked Promise

November 8, 2013

President Barack Obama's emphatic pledge, repeated at least 36 times, that nobody who liked their health insurance would lose it under the Affordable Care Act has been proven false, yet loyal Democrats have continued their attempts to spin his statement in television interviews.

White House press secretary Jay Carney has been tasked on a near-daily basis with explaining the debunked Obamacare promise, with some memorable attempts including:

5 percent of the population is only possibly affected.

The provision within the Affordable Care Act was the manifestation of the president's promise, that if you had a plan that you liked, you could keep it. But he didn't say if your insurance company cancels your plan and gives you something else that's worse, you can keep it.

The statement was aimed to convey that because insurers could continue offering plans, even those deemed to be substandard, if they were in existence at the time the law was passed, you could keep your plan. And that's what the president said.

That's not what he said. Obama said as recently as Sept. 26, "If you already have health care, you don't have to do anything."

Gov. Deval Patrick (D., Mass.) told Meet the Press that Obama's remarks were in no way deceitful, before immediately contradicting that statement by saying, "For 95 percent of the people in America, that is the truth. For the small number of people who have a health care plan which in fact will not insure them when they get sick, it is not true."

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi told MSNBC's Disrupt with Karen Finney that those being dropped would only see their plans improve. It bears repeating that Obama said over and over that nobody would lose their plan if they liked it.

"For a small number in the private market, they will do better," Pelosi insisted.

Democratic National Committee chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D., Fla.) referred to the cancellations as "transitioned" plans and repeated the talking point that "most" would see improved prices.

"At the end of the day, most of those people who are having their plans transitioned will have better benefits for lower costs," she said.

Rep. Frank Pallone (D,, N.J.), in a contentious interview with CNN's Piers Morgan Oct. 31, said Obama's promise was completely true and that pre-Obamacare policies were a "scam" regardless.

"You can keep your plan in the individual market too, if the insurance company wants to continue to sell it," he said.

Morgan said Pallone was moving the goal posts so much, soon they would be literally off the field.

Despite all this, Schultz told MSNBC the following: no Democrats had uttered a single falsehood about the Affordable Care Act.

"There was nothing about what President Obama or that I or any other Democrat supporting the Affordable Care Act said that was not true," she said.