WASHINGTON – Sorry just doesn’t cut it.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry said Sunday that President Obama’s apology last week for telling Americans they could keep their current health plans under ObamaCare was woefully inadequate.
“I don’t think it’s even close to enough,” Perry said on ABC’s “This Week.” “He needs to stand up in front of the American people and say, ‘You know what, I perpetuated a fraud on you.’”
President Obama repeatedly promised that “if you like your health plan, you can keep it” under ObamaCare. But insurance companies now are cancelling policies for millions of Americans because of the new law.
“I am sorry that they are finding themselves in this situation based on assurances they got from me,” Obama said last week on NBC.
Democrats are reeling from the widespread dissatisfaction with ObamaCare, including outrage over cancelled policies and frustration with the government’s dysfunctional health-insurance Web site.
Republicans hope it will give them the upper hand in next year’s elections.
Perry, who dropped his bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012 after an embarrassing debate performance, is eyeing another run in 2016.
His attack on the health care law follows Obama’s visit last week to Dallas, where the president blasted Perry’s decision for Texas to opt out of the ObamaCare expansion of Medicaid coverage for the poor.
About half of the states, mostly Republican-led states, have declined to participate in the expansion of Medicaid after a Supreme Court ruling gave them that option.
“For him to come into the state of Texas and say you all should join up in a broken system is a pretty hollow statement,” Perry said. “The fact is that people in the state of Texas are smart enough to know they do not want to participate in a program that has every bit as big a chance of getting to the shore as the Titanic did.”
Meanwhile, the head of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) proclaimed that the party’s candidates will be bragging about ObamaCare on the campaign trail.
“I think actually that Democrats will be able to run on Obamacare as an advantage,” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), the DNC chairman, said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Still, she struggled to defend Obama’s broken promises on behalf of the party.
“The president himself said that to the extent that his commitment – and our commitment – that if you like your health plan you can keep it is not possible for what is actually less than 5 percent of the folks on the individual market, we are going to work toward making sure they can do that,” she said.
“What we’re not going to do is … allow the Republicans embracing the idea that we should stop people from being able to get access to quality, affordable health care,” said Wasserman Schultz.