Obama to meet with insurers Friday on Obamacare fix

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will meet on Friday with insurance industry executives to discuss changes that he has proposed to his signature healthcare law to address the outcry over insurance policy cancellations, a White House official said. The meeting comes a day after the president, under fire for the botched rollout of his top domestic policy achievement, announced he would allow individuals to keep insurance policies that were being canceled under the 2010 Affordable Care Act, widely known as Obamacare. The health law has stumbled in its early phases, first because the website designed to sign up consumers malfunctioned, and then because numerous people complained their insurance policies were being canceled. Obama has promised to have the website functioning smoothly for most people by the end of the month. Insurers and state regulators say that Obama's fix for policies canceled under the law will create new problems for the industry and could lead to an increase in premiums. The change, which Obama announced under growing pressure from lawmakers from his Democratic Party, would allow policies that do not meet Obamacare's standards to be renewed anyway. (Reporting by Mark Felsenthal; Editing by Eric Beech)