FOX "Hannity" - Affordable Care Act

Interview

SEAN HANNITY, HOST: The administration is totally clueless, and the president's own so-called fix, which is not a fix at all, proves it.

Now, the insurance industry has spent years now trying to figure out how to offer health care coverage thanks to ObamaCare, and they cannot reverse everything that they've done just because the president now snaps his finger and says so.

Now, today, America's Health Insurance Plans -- they put out a blistering statement in terms of a trade organization. They said, quote, "Changing the rules after health plans have already met the requirements of the law could destabilize the market and result in higher premiums for consumers. These are premiums that have already been set for next year based on an assumption of when consumers will be transitioning to the new law and the new marketplace. If now fewer younger and healthier people choose to purchase coverage in the exchange, the premiums will increase and there will be fewer choices for consumers. Additional steps must be taken to stabilize the marketplace and mitigate the adverse impact on the consumers."

Well, you're the consumers, so now what? So what will the Hail Mary pass of this last hour -- what will it do? Will it help the Democrats in the 2014 midterm elections? Will it accomplish that?

Joining me now with reaction, Iowa Congressman Steve King, Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann.

First of all, we got to get this on the table. This does not fulfill the president's promise. Congressman King, all this does is delay this madness. We're going to be back in the same place one year from now, aren't we?

REP. STEVE KING, R-IOWA: Well, we are. In fact, we're back in the same madness sooner, Sean, in that he can't fulfill this promise because the insurance companies have to opt in. And the insured need to also opt in. There's no way that that becomes 100 percent of the people get to keep their policy.

And furthermore, his restatement of the grandfather clause -- that always was a specious clause that would exempt if -- if premiums went up, it disqualified the policies. So this is a whole lot of rhetoric out here in a desperate president that's trying to react to now a Democrat pushback. The senators that went to the White House, the Democrats that have said, ee're going to vote with Republicans on this -- the president's trying to tamp this down. This is a panic mode, I think, for the president of the United States.

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HANNITY: So -- but they've been preparing for this for years! So what do we have, six, seven weeks left in the year, and now these insurance companies have got to go back? You heard the comment from this trade organization, Congressman King. They're -- they couldn't be more clear in terms of what the impact is going to be. Does this last-minute political maneuver potentially result in even higher premiums for people?

KING: Well, Sean, it might be higher premiums for people, but the insurance companies have -- they look, like you said, a long ways into the future, like they said. And they're going to dig in pretty strongly on this.

I want to reinforce what Michele has just said. The president, though, he has no constitutional authority to extend the individual mandate -- which is what he attempts to do with this CMS rule that I have in my hand -- and he had no constitutional authority to extend the employer mandate, either.

The law says they shall take effect and be implemented in each month after December 31st of 2013. He has to come to Congress if he's going to extend this. And I think that he should come on bended knee and ask us would we bail him out, because part of what he's doing here is he's accepting an extension of the individual mandate, writing it in by rule. And that's what he said he would veto if it ever got to his desk.

This is a high level of contradiction in the president's position. It's just chaotic.

HANNITY: So still, fundamentally, the overwhelming promise that he made the American people, he's not going to fulfill. You're not going to be able to keep your plan. That dovetails into not being able to keep your doctor. Then we get the rate shock that we've all talked about.

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HANNITY: All right, thank you both for being with us. We're going to watch very closely how many Democrats vote to fulfill the promise that most of them made themselves. Tomorrow, we'll be watching very closely. Thanks for being with us.

KING: Thanks, Sean.

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