Hagan hedges on Obamacare questions

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — After filing for reelection this week Sen. Kay Hagan (D-North Carolina) dodged reporters’ questions about a broken promise that North Carolinians could keep their insurance policies.

Today we asked her again about the estimated 473,000 residents that faced cancellations when the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, launched last fall and when she knew it might happen. Again Hagan did not answer directly. Instead she said she wanted to clarify something.

“The State of North Carolina under the insurance commissioner along with insurance companies in North Carolina, and if you had a plan, and you liked that plan, you can keep that plan in North Carolina,” Hagan said during an interview from the US Capitol. “And I have sponsored legislation to make that permanent.”

Hagan says in the two years before the ACA launch, insurers sold policies that would not meet minimum standards of the new law. She made a similar comment earlier this week. In response, Blue Cross Blue Shield told the Raleigh News & Observer that’s not true.

We also asked Sen. Hagan about a plan Sen. Richard Burr (R-North Carolina) helped unveil just before the State of the Union last month. Burr and fellow Republicans Sen. Tom Coburn (OK) and Orrin Hatch (UT) launched the Patient Choice, Affordability, Responsibility, and Empowerment (CARE) Act as “a legislative plan that repeals Obamacare and then replaces it with common-sense, patient-centered reforms that reduce health care costs and increase access to affordable, high-quality care.”

“I think it wants to repeal (the Affordable Care Act) and totally change it,” Hagan said about the Patient CARE Act.

She then said the ACA needs “common-sense fixes,” including keeping a plan if you like it and revisiting how the ACA handles medical devices.

Hagan faces a Democratic primary challenge from Will Stewart of Pender County.