It’s full speed ahead for Obamacare in New York.
Gov. Cuomo on Monday said the state doesn’t need to allow a one-year reprieve in insurance policy cancellations of substandard health care policies because the rollout of Obamacare is going well in New York.
“We’ve had actually very good success with our program, so we don’t see any reason to change it now,” Cuomo said on Staten Island.
“If it’s causing a problem for someone, we’ll certainly look at it, but we don’t have those kind of problems here in New York,” he said.
President Obama last week called for the reprieve amid a national furor.
Industry officials and watchdogs said New York has not seen many cancellations because the state already had most of the coverage mandated in the new law. Individuals buying policies were generally saving money, the watchdogs said.
“My guess is there were very few substandard policies (in New York), and those with individual policies are getting, on average, a 50% reduction in premiums,” said Blair Horner of the New York Public Interest Research Group.
As of last week, nearly 50,000 people had enrolled through the state exchange. The federal government’s bug-plagued Obamacare website, by contrast, had enrolled only 27,000 people.
