By Roberta Rampton and Lewis Krauskopf
WASHINGTON, Nov 20 (Reuters) - State insurance commissioners told President Barack Obama on Wednesday that his effort to stem a wave of insurance cancellations caused by his signature healthcare law could lead to higher premiums.
Obama met with representatives from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners to discuss the "fix" he came up with last week to calm the uproar surrounding millions of cancellation notices sent to holders of individual health insurance policies no longer legal under the healthcare law, known as Obamacare.
While taking responsibility for the troubled rollout of his law and apologizing for the promises he made that were not being kept, Obama sought last week to address the problem of canceled plans by giving insurers the option to extend them By one year, even if they did not meet mininum standards under the law.
The insurance market in the United States is heavily regulated at the state level. While individual state commissioners have no legal obligation to go along with Obama's wishes, the White House move effectively put the onus on them for cancellations caused by the administration's law.
Comments after the meeting reflected continued skepticism by some of the commissioners.
In a statement, the group "stressed their concern that different rules for different policies would be detrimental to the overall insurance marketplace and could result in higher premiums for consumers, without addressing the underlying concern of gaps in coverage."
Since the passage of Obama's Affordable Care Act in 2010, "state regulators have been working to ensure that plans are compliant with the new rules. These proposed changes are creating a level of uncertainty that we must work together to alleviate," Jim Donelon, NAIC president and Louisiana insurance commissioner, said in a statement.
"We share the President's goal of affordable coverage for consumers, and we will work with the insurance companies in our states to implement changes that make sense while following our mandate of consumer protection," he said.
Insurance commissioners from Connecticut and North Carolina also attended the meeting along with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, White House domestic policy adviser Cecilia Munoz, healthcare adviser Chris Jennings, and White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler. The meeting lasted about 50 minutes.
Since the messy rollout of the healthcare law last month, the administration has drawn criticism over its glitch-prone website and the revelation that Obama was wrong to promise that those people who liked their plan would be able to keep it if they wished.