President Obama Pushes Back and Stands Tall On Obamacare in New Orleans

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President Obama isn’t backing down or being pushed around by the Republican attacks on the ACA. Today in New Orleans, the president went on the offensive stood tall on the ACA.

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Transcript:

PRESIDENT OBAMA: I took up this cause knowing it was hard. There was a reason why no other president had done it. To make sure that every American has access to quality affordable healthcare, and to make sure that no American ever again has to fear one illness is going to bankrupt them.

The work we’ve already done has resulted in over the past three years healthcare costs rising at the slowest pace on record. Healthcare costs for businesses are growing at about one third of the rate they were a decade ago, and we want those trends to continue.

Now we’ve had this problem with the website. I’m not happy about that, but we’re working overtime to make sure it gets fixed because right now we’ve put in place a system, a marketplace where people can get affordable healthcare plans. I promise you nobody’s been more frustrated. I wanted to go in and fix it myself, but I don’t write code. But to every American with a preexisting condition who has been waiting for the day they could be covered just like everybody else. For folks who couldn’t afford to buy their own insurance because they don’t get it on the job, we’re going to fix the website, because the insurance plans are there. They are good, and millions of Americans are already finding that they’ll gain better coverage for less cost and it is the right thing to do.

The president also talked about why it is important to expand Medicaid, and said, “We already pay for the healthcare of people who don’t have health insurance. We just pay for the most expensive version.” Obama explained that we are paying a hidden tax when the uninsured have to go to the ER for their care.

President Obama isn’t going to be scared off of the ACA because of a few more desperate Republican tactics. The president is correct. This law is the right thing to do. A few million people who had lousy insurance are going to be inconvenienced, but hundreds of millions of Americans are going to benefit from some aspect of the ACA. If healthcare reform was easy, it would have been done decades ago.

Obama is fighting for this law, because he sincerely believes that it will be a good thing for the American people. Elected Democrats are antsy because the website is not working, but the website is not the ACA. Once the website is fixed, the Democratic jitters will vanish.

The president is pushing back, and supporters of the ACA should be encouraged by his full throated defense of the law.

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association