Colorado Obamacare Cancellations: When 249,000 Is Politically Inconvenient

‘At the height of controversy surrounding President Obama’s promises on the federal health care overhaul, U.S. Senator Mark Udall’s office worked assiduously to revise press accounts that 249,000 Coloradans received health care cancellation notices. Because the 249,000 figure was produced inside the Colorado Division of Insurance, Udall’s office lobbied that agency to revise the figure, or revise their definition of what qualified as a cancellation.’

‘Worth noting is the fact the original media reports of 249,000 cancellations in the state happened on or about November 6. The dispute between Udall’s office and the Department of Insurance didn’t happen more than a week later on November 14. Specifically, the issue didn’t appear to rise to importance for the Udall office until President Obama decreed citizens could keep cancelled plans.

At the time of President Obama’s decree on November 13, Senator Udall was proposing legislation that would have created a legal framework whereby citizens with cancelled plans could keep said plans for an additional two years.

In yet another email, Udall staffer Joe Britton gives away the extent to which Udall’s office was seeking complicit messaging from the Division of Insurance. ”We need to move on this ASAP – or we’ll be forced to challenge the 249K number ourselves. It is wildly off or at least very misleading and reporters keep repeating it.” Eventually, Udall’s office did take the task upon themselves, successfully garnering a telling of their story in The Denver Post with an online publishing timestamped 4:57 PM MST, November 15. Donlin later alerted several of her colleagues in the Division of Insurance about the online story, saying, “Here’s a link to [Denver Post reporter] Mike Booth’s latest article quoting ‘Sen. Udall staff.’ The online comments are very interesting.”’ - Udall’s office pushed back hard on number of health care cancellations, completecolorado.com, 01/09/2014

Link to the entire article appears below:

http://completecolorado.com/pagetwo/2014/01/09/udalls-office-pushed-back-hard-on-number-of-health-care-cancellations/