Issa Investigates Obama's Broken Promise

House investigators are demanding to know just when President Obama realized he couldn’t keep his oft-repeated promise to let people keep the doctor they like under his signature health care law.

House Government and Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., wrote to 15 insurance companies Monday — including big carriers like Aetna, BlueCross BlueShield and Cigna — demanding by Dec. 13 "all communications" between company workers and the Obama administration dating since March 2010, when the health care reforms became law, the Washington Examiner reported.

In the letter, Issa said millions of dropped health care plans, followed by the news of limited access to doctors under the health care law,  "raise serious questions as to the origin and nature of the president's assurances."

Obama repeatedly pledged that people could keep their insurance plans as well as their doctors under the Affordable Care Act. But since Oct. 1, when the new health care exchanges opened, millions of individual policy holders have received cancellation notices, while others are discovering their doctors are no longer included in their coverage.

Issa's letter to the insurers highlights a page on the government's Affordable Care Act website that promises "health insurance reform will not affect the choice of doctors you have today and it won't affect your relationship with your doctor,” the Examiner reported. But many insurers have cut the number of providers they offer to control costs under the new law, which expands benefits and allows people with pre-existing conditions to sign up.

Issa's office wants insurers to document all plan cancellation notices each sent to policy holders as a direct result of the health care law, as well as any provider cancellations.
Issa also wants to know if the insurers tried to warn Obama about the impending cancellations and changes to coverage.

His request includes all documents showing "whether employees or agents" of the insurance companies objected to the administration's claim, either within the company or to the administration, the Examiner reported.

The loss of preferred doctors is the latest restriction of the new law that has caught policy holders off guard, discovered as they began shopping for plans on insurance exchanges, only to find out their choice of MDs and hospitals is restricted.

And it’s causing a backlash, the Washington Post reported.

For example, Seattle Children’s Hospital has filed suit against Washington’s insurance commissioner after a number of insurers kept it out of their provider networks. “It is unprecedented in our market to have major insurance plans exclude Seattle Children’s,” Sandy Melzer, senior vice president, told the Post last month.