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Jonathan Cohn at The New Republic on the Obamacare tweaks. Insurers now can offer their non-compliant plans through 2014, but "the unknown here is whether insurers will revisit and renew policies they already cancelled. Insurance industry officials I’ve consulted don’t seem terribly interested in doing that," Cohn writes. President Obama is passing the buck to insurers — if they don't renew cancelled plans, that's no longer on the President. But the tweaks will result in customers getting better explanations from insurers: "Under the new guidance, insurers who offer beneficiaries a chance to stay on old plans must make clear how those plans compare to the new ones available on the Obamacare marketplaces. In other words, insurers must identify the gaps in their current coverage—which might be anything from rehabilitative services to prescription drugs to maternity care—and point out that policies in the new marketplaces cover those things." Cohn also argues that Obama's speech suggested he's willing to make more changes to help those affected by cancellations.
Brian Beutler at Salon on Democrats' "civil war." "If you were expecting conservatives to react to the Democrats’ mad scramble with anything less than unrestrained glee you … well, I guess you don’t understand the politics of Obamacare," Beutler writes. Yes, Congressional Democrats are looking for a fix to help people keep their plans, but "ask them ... if they support the Affordable Care Act, or think it should be repealed, or regret their votes for it, or believe it can be fixed, or anything like that, and they’re unanimous." The Democrats' "civil war" isn't really a civil war. Beutler concludes, "We’ll know Democrats are warring with each other, or in full retreat from the law, when Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi can’t restrain rank-and-file members from forcing legislative sabotage on Obama." Business Insider political reporter Danny Vinik tweets, "Dem divisions are minor compared to Republican ones."