Discussing a study the AP described as saying that “[n]early one in 10 midsize or large employers expects to stop offering health coverage to workers once federal insurance exchanges start in 2014,” the Washington Examiner’s Byron York notes, “In June 2009, as he fought to pass the Democrats’ national health care bill, President Obama made a clear, unequivocal pledge. ‘No matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise to the American people,’ Obama said. ‘If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. If you like your health care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what.’”

York continues, “Spoken with great confidence, Obama’s words were meant to reassure, and it’s possible many Americans believed them. But at the same time, the president and his Democratic allies in Congress built the new health care law on provisions that, when acting together, guarantee that some people — perhaps many people — won’t be able to keep their health care plans. . . . So when it takes effect in 2014, the law will give employers a choice: Continue to offer increasingly expensive health coverage, or pay a relatively small fine, save a lot of money, and let employees buy their own subsidized coverage on the exchange. The incentive seems pretty clear.”

Indeed it does, as Republicans warned over and over during the health care debate, only to be dismissed by Democrats.

As Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said a year after Democrats jammed through their unpopular health care bill, “[W]e now know that those who promised us that ‘if you like your plan, you can keep your plan’ were dead wrong. The Obama administration has already admitted that at least seven million seniors will now lose their Medicare Advantage plans. And one of the administration’s own top health care analysts recently admitted that this oft-repeated pledge was ‘not true in all cases.’

“We all knew the bill created strong incentives for businesses to change or drop employees from health plans they get through their jobs. Now that the bill is passed, the White House admits it too. One recent study suggests that as many as 35 million American workers could see their employer-based health insurance plans dropped in this way. So the administration’s promises on this point, which were echoed by Capitol Hill Democrats like [former] Speaker Pelosi, turned out to be hollow.”

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