Cancellation of Health Care Plans Replaces Website Problems as Prime Target

WASHINGTON - After focusing for weeks on the technical failures of President Obama's health insurance website, Republicans on Tuesday broadened their criticism of the health care law, pointing to Americans whose health plans have been terminated because they do not meet the law's new coverage requirements.

The rising concern about canceled health coverage has provided Republicans a more tangible line of attack on the law and its most appealing promise for the vast majority of Americans who have insurance: that it would lower their costs, or at least hold them harmless. Baffled consumers are producing real letters from insurance companies that directly contradict Mr. Obama's oft-repeated reassurances that if people like the insurance they have, they will be able to keep it.

'My constituents are frightened,' Representative Kevin Brady, Republican of Texas, told Marilyn Tavenner, the official whose department oversaw the creation of Mr. Obama's health insurance marketplace, at a House Ways and Means Committee hearing Tuesday. 'They are being forced out of health care plans they like. The clock is ticking. The federal website is broken. Their health care isn't a glitch.'

In the weeks since the health marketplaces opened, insurance companies have begun sending notices to hundreds of thousands of Americans in the individual insurance market informing them that their existing plans will soon be canceled. In many of those cases, the insured have been offered new plans, often with better coverage but also at higher prices.

The cancellation notices are proving to be a political gift to Republicans, who were increasingly concerned that their narrowly focused criticism of the problem-plagued HealthCare.gov could lead to a dead end, once the website's issues are addressed. Already they found themselves being pressed to join a Democratic push to fix the problems, not gut the law.

'There's a little bit of a danger that if we're just focused on the obvious ineptitude of the web designers and of the system breakdown - I wouldn't call it a glitch, I'd call it a breakdown - we're forgetting the bigger picture here,' said Senator Rob Portman, Republican of Ohio. 'Once people do get on they'll find out they'll be paying more, not less, and won't be able to keep what they have.'

Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, called the website criticism 'overblown.'

'They'll fix the problems with the website. I think they won't fix the problems with the bill,' he said.

Democrats pushed back on the Republican attacks, pointing to problems in the early days of the prescription drug plan Republicans passed in 2003, known as Medicare Part D. Most Democrats opposed that law strenuously, but, they said, once it went into effect, they helped constituents enroll and worked for its success.

'Despite Democrats' opposition to Part D 10 years ago, we committed to making the best of the program,' said Representative Bill Pascrell Jr., Democrat of New Jersey, rising from his seat at the Ways and Means hearing to excoriate Republicans.

In contrast, with the president's health care law, Republicans 'want this to fail. They want chaos,' said Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate. 'Their credibility is not that strong.'

The cancellation notices appear to open a new front in the Republican war on the health care law. The affected population, those who bought insurance on their own, is a small fraction of an insurance market dominated by employer-sponsored health plans. But many of those individual policy holders are surprised and angry.

Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the House majority leader, pointed to Bruno Gora, a constituent who was informed this month by Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield that 'to meet the requirements of the new law, your current plan can no longer be offered.' Mr. Gora, 61, was offered alternatives, including one that would lock in his existing benefits. But, said Mr. Gora, a self-employed printing distributor, his premiums could rise by as much as $3,400 a year.

In an interview, Mr. Gora said he had not been able to determine if he would qualify for federal subsidies because he could not get on to the website.

'What did he say? I can keep my plan, and I can save,' Mr. Gora said of the president. 'That's not occurring.'

At the hearing Tuesday, Ms. Tavenner said that in compliance with the health care law, the new policies would provide more benefits and more consumer protections than many existing policies.

The chairman of the committee, Representative Dave Camp, Republican of Michigan, said that at least 146,000 Michigan residents had recently received notices that their current insurance policies would be canceled because the coverage did not meet standards of the new law.

'In fact,' Mr. Camp said, 'based on what little information the administration has disclosed, it turns out that more people have received cancellation notices for their health care plans this month than have enrolled in the exchanges.'

Ms. Tavenner said that 'nearly 700,000 applications have been submitted to the federal and state marketplaces' in the past four weeks. But she would not say how many of those people had actually enrolled in health insurance plans since the federal and state marketplaces, or exchanges, opened on Oct. 1.

'That number will not be available until mid-November,' Ms. Tavenner said. 'We expect the initial number to be small.'

But Democrats facing tough election campaigns next year are growing increasingly nervous. Senator Jeanne Shaheen, a New Hampshire Democrat up for re-election, began pressing the Obama administration last week to delay the penalties on individuals who remain uninsured, arguing that consumers should not be held accountable for failing to buy health plans on a website they cannot access. The cancellation letters only added to the pressure she faces.

'We knew that they would have to sign up again,' she said of constituents on the individual insurance market who might face changes under the health care law. 'But obviously I don't think anyone thought people would be kicked off their health insurance plan.'

Representative Allyson Y. Schwartz, Democrat of Pennsylvania, who was an enthusiastic supporter of the 2010 health care law and is now running for governor of Pennsylvania, told Ms. Tavenner that the chaotic debut of the federal insurance marketplace 'has done some damage to Americans' confidence in this website, in the marketplace and even potentially in the options that they would have available to get health coverage.'

Republican leaders faced their own conundrum. As they pick apart the carrying out of the health care law, top Republicans have found themselves at once calling for fixes to the law and insisting on its repeal. Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio said Tuesday: 'It's time to delay this. It's time to fix this before it gets any worse.'

'We need to fix this problem,' Mr. Cantor added, a far cry from the Republican mantra of 'repeal and replace.'

When pressed, Mr. Boehner backtracked: 'There is no way to fix this monstrosity.'