CNN "Erin Burnett Outfront" - Transcript: Affordable Care Act

Interview

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BURNETT: Keep a mind the website crashed, a few hundred people tried to access it during one of the tests. And around the same time as that crashed, the president went out to American people and said, I'm quoting him, tell your friends, classmates, family members to sign up. Wasn't it Kathleen Sebelius' job to make sure the president knew the scale of the problem so he wouldn't go out and say something like that and look, at the least, clueless?

REP. HENRY WAXMAN (D), CALIFORNIA: I think that expected -- the -- web site would work. And they didn't realize that once they opened it up on October 1 the demand would be so great that it was not able to accommodate it. We have a glitch. It needs to be fixed. No question about it.

But the law is basically a good law and people will be able to get affordable health insurance. Notwithstanding the fact they had pre- existing medical conditions or in the past couldn't afford it. Insurance companies won't be able -- will be able to put limits on it and take your policy once you get sick.

These reforms are -- are already in effect and -- what we need to do is to give people the chance to buy the insurance that the -- promise that will be available to them.

BURNETT: Final question to you, Congressman, according to Kaiser, which obviously as you know is a nonpartisan evaluator of health care, they are saying health plans are sending hundreds of thousands, hundreds of thousands of cancellation letters to people who have bought their own coverage. The main reason apparently is that those policies don't meet the requirements of the affordable care act.

So I guess, for example, that could mean if you have a plan, it doesn't provide maternity care. But a lot of people like their plans and didn't want maternity care. Is what Americans have heard from the president over the past four years true? Here is what the president has been saying.

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BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan. Our approach would free serve the right of Americans who have insurance to keep their doctor in their plan. If you are one of the more than 250 million Americans who already have health insurance you will keep your health insurance.

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BURNETT: Were the American people misled, Congressman?

WAXMAN: Well, the American people were told they would be able to keep their insurance. Most people are insured through their jobs. Those insurance policies will continue. In the individual market, when people go to shop, they will be shopping together and the -- the -- with the opportunity to choose between different plans.

And if people have a private individual policy, they are often charged a lower price because they are healthy because those who have pre-existing conditions were excluded. Let's get everybody in the same pool. They should have provided for a transition. Some of this is hitting people quite abruptly.

BURNETT: Hundreds of thousands of people are being told they are going to lose the plans and a lot of them are saying they like those plans. It is nice the president has this list of ten things every plan has do, but if you are not like me and pregnant you may not want or need to pay for maternity plans. You may be pretty mad right now.

WAXMAN: I don't think that the issue is those plans don't cover what will be required under the affordable care act. I think that the fact is that a lot of people buy individual insurance and they should be buying it with everybody else who needs to buy individual insurance. Some of those who have it now are -- healthy. They should have been allowed to keep their insurance and at least million it expired and then buy the plans through the exchange. I think that's the mix-up they -- transition issue and I know it is -- difficult for a lot of people.

BURNETT: All right.

WAXMAN: I'm sorry about that.

BURNETT: Thank you very much, Congressman. It has been a pleasure and I appreciate your taking the time today.

WAXMAN: Good luck to you.

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