After taking hits from those on both sides of the political aisle, President Barack Obama continued to fine tune his promise that Americans who like their health plans would be able to keep them under the Affordable Care Act, The Associated Press reported.
"If you have or had one of these plans before the Affordable Care Act came into law and you really liked that plan, what we said was you could keep it if it hasn't changed since the law's passed. So we wrote into the Affordable Care Act you are grandfathered in on that plan," Obama said.
"But if the insurance company changes it, then what we're saying is they have got to change it to a higher standard. They've got to make it better," Obama told about 200 of his campaign supporters at an Organizing for Action grassroots event in Washington on Monday night.
"The bottom line is that we are making the insurance market better for everybody and that's right thing to do," the president added.
At least 3.5 million Americans have been issued cancellations, even as the exact number remains unclear, news reports said.
Obama also said that the problem has been limited to fewer than 5 percent "who've got cut-rate plans that don't offer real financial protection in the event of a serious illness or an accident," Obama also said in a speech at Boston's Faneuil Hall this past week.
"Despite the president's repeated promise of 'if you like your plan, you can keep it,' many Americans are now learning the sad reality that their current plan will no longer exist beginning on January 1," argued Rep. Fred Upton, the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee.
