Chris Christie: 'People Weren't Told the Truth' About Obamacare

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on Tuesday hit President Barack Obama for not telling the American people "the truth" about the extent to which the new health care law would affect existing insurance plans.

Christie, a Republican, opted not to create a state-run exchange for New Jersey, sending the state's residents to the federal healthcare.gov to buy health coverage. Asked on CBS News whether he regretted not creating a state system after a reported 800,000 New Jerseyans lost their current plans as a result of Obamacare, Christie said no.

“It wouldn’t have made any difference, in fact,” Christie said on CBS. “What the federal government wanted us to do in the states was to take on this burden ourselves without telling us how much it would cost or what authority we would have to actually run our exchanges. That’s why myself and 33 other governors, both Republican and Democrat, said no to a state-run exchange."

“The real problem is that people weren’t told the truth,” he continued, noting the number of times the president promised people would be able to keep their insurance plans if they liked them.

Christie said, "Now you hear hundreds of thousands of people across the country being told they couldn't, so the White House needs to square that with what was told to the American people and told to the Congress beforehand and it doesn’t seem to square at the moment.”

Christie, appearing on CBS on the one-year anniversary after Superstorm Sandy slammed into the East Coast, was criticized by Republicans after he appeared with Obama in the final stages of the 2012 campaign and offered praise for his handling of the disaster.

(H/T: Mediaite)

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