Several insurance industry officials and state insurance commissioners expressed frustration Friday, saying they were “baffled” by President Barack Obama’s assertion that the cancellation of millions of insurance policies occurred because a key provision of the Affordable Care Act didn’t work as expected. The administration was warned three years ago that regulations would have exactly that effect, they said…

“We have been saying for years that the requirements in the law were going to mean that people couldn’t keep their current plans and they were going to have to purchase coverage that was more expensive,” said one high-level heath industry insider who spoke on condition of anonymity. “We said these changes would disrupt coverage and increase premiums for consumers. And now everything we said is coming true and people are acting surprised.”…

“The significance of the AHIP letters is that they show the administration was warned that their proposed grandfather rules were far too stringent for people’s plans to survive come 2014,” health care analyst Robert Laszewski, who consults for insurance companies, hospitals and physicians groups, told NBC News. “The industry told the administration that the historic rate at which consumers increase their out-of-pocket costs was far more than the very limited rules the administration ultimately wrote. The only foreseeable outcome would be that most plans would not survive. The administration, knowing that, went ahead with these stringent rules anyway.”