Health-care law's problems test loyalty of Democrats in Congress In the Senate, moderate Democrats facing reelection battles next year have assembled legislative alternatives designed to fix some of the problems and provide political cover for themselves. Into this caustic mix stepped President Obama with his announcement Thursday that he would allow insurance companies to continue offering plans that do not meet the new law's requirements. The move was a direct response to the political eruptions that followed news that insurance carriers were canceling policies after the president had promised that people would be able to keep them if they so desired. "If you like your doctor, you keep your doctor," became something of a mantra for Obama. At one point during what amounted to an hour-long mea culpa, Obama even apologized on behalf of the many Democratic lawmakers who repeated those assurances to the voters. "They were making representations based on what I told them and what this White House and our administrative staff told them, and so it's not on them, it's on us," Obama said in the White House Briefing Room. As the president finished answering questions, the White House's full-court press continued on Capitol Hill. Denis McDonough, Obama's chief of staff, led several senior officials into nearly four hours of meetings. First, they ducked in with the 55-member Senate Democratic caucus. They tried to calm the group and pleaded for time to try to repair the damage without any legislative interference, pledging to fix the federal Web site that opened to disastrous reviews on Oct. 1. McDonough and his group then darted across the Capitol and down into a basement room where nearly 200 House Democrats had assembled, delivering the same message. In particular, they urged House Democrats to not support Friday's GOP bill, which would allow people to keep their old health insurance by extending the "grandfather provisions" of the health-care law to include plans purchased after the law was adopted in 2010. Democrats worry that would keep millions of people out of the exchanges and decimate the bill. A large number of such defections would be a policy blow to the law, but it would be an even more significant political gut punch to the president. For now, the White House appears to have succeeded in calming the nerves of anxious Democrats, but Obama's allies gave warning that the support was not open-ended. Instead, Obama's once-loyal supporters on Capitol Hill gave a qualified, trust-but- verify commitment. "The president's guidance was welcome and well received, but we still may have to fashion some legislation, and we're going to continue to work that," Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), lead author of a bill similar to the House draft, told reporters after the McDonough meeting.