WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama, in a retreat aimed at quelling the latest protest over his health-care law, on Thursday said insurers can extend by one year those policies they had canceled for failing to meet the law's requirements.
Mr. Obama accompanied the policy shift with an admission of personal responsibility for the botched launch of the program.
"We fumbled the rollout on this health-care law," Mr. Obama said in a televised White House news conference. "Am I going to have to do some work to rebuild confidence around some of our initiatives? Yeah."
Actuaries have been concerned that the new policies offered through the online exchange are being saddled with too many sick people. That is because they are the consumers who may be most willing to press through the troubled sign-up process.Mr. Obama's move to allow canceled plans to be reinstated may pose a threat to the law.
Many people who have received cancellation notices are believed to be relatively healthy, experts said, because the policies were purchased at a time when insurers were allowed to exclude certain unhealthy buyers. If these healthier consumers don't come into the new markets in the law's first year, the balance of risk in the policies could be harmed.
White House officials said the administration was considering changes to a government-run risk-adjustment program that is part of the law to try to compensate insurers for any higher risk.
Mr. Obama's unusual public acknowledgment of personal fault came as polls show a growing number of Americans are losing trust in his leadership and disapproving not only of the job he is doing but of him personally.
When the president settled on the new policy earlier this week, he decided to announce it in a news conference, a White House official said.
Aides said he wanted to show that he is in touch with the scale of the problems, that he wanted "to own this and be very clear that he gets it," as one of them put it.
"The president wanted to do a press conference to demonstrate some candor and realism," a White House official said. "There is this myth out there that he wasn't engaged or aloof."
Many Democrats, including those who supported legislative fixes, such as a bill backed by Sen. Mary Landrieu (D., La.), welcomed Mr. Obama's announcement.
"It doesn't go as far as I'd like it to go, but it's certainly a step in the right direction," said Sen. Jeff Merkley (D., Ore.), one of the most vocal critics of the Obama administration's handling of the health-law rollout.
Republicans were not so moved. Rep. Steve Scalise (R., La.), chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee, said Mr. Obama's news conference "was like a person who burned down your house, later showing up with an empty bucket and talking about how inadequate your house was before the fire."
Some Democrats said more may have to be done legislatively, depending on how effective his administration action proves to be. White House officials also have not ruled out backing legislative action, an administration official said.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) said he was prepared to advance legislation if necessary, but signaled no immediate plans to do so.
"The fix proposed by President Obama today is an important step toward addressing a problem that has arisen and if we need to do more, we will," Mr. Reid said.
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