President Obama trumpeted California’s leading role in enactment of the Affordable Care Act — the sweeping health reform widely known as Obamacare.
“This is working the way it’s supposed to,” Obama said in a Northern California speech.
The president dismissed “a bunch of political talk out there” as “fear-mongering,” instead urging Americans to look at what’s happening in states like California right now.”
California’s lineup of health plans for individuals revealed rates “that were lower than anybody thought,” Obama said in a half-hour talk in San Jose. He also praised Oregon and Washington as states that were “working hard” to make the Affordable Care Act work via their health exchanges.
The insurance marketplace Covered California begins accepting applications Oct. 1, with policies and subsidies going into effect Jan. 1.
The president was in the Golden State on June 7 for fund-raising and a meeting with the president of China.
“We’re going to make sure that millions of people who don’t currently have health insurance or are getting a really bad deal on their health insurance are finally going to get it,” he told his Silicon Valley audience.
Obama said “85 percent of people who already have health insurance getting better protections, and receiving rebates” under the Affordable Care Act. He cited “a wide array of new benefits, better protections and stronger cost controls” for those who already have insurance.
To the vast majority of Americans who have employment-related health insurance and are paying higher premiums, Obama said, don’t blame the costs just on reform. Insurance companies and some employers are “still jacking up prices unnecessarily,” he said.
“When you’re implementing a program this large, there will be some glitches,” he said. “There are going to be some hiccups.”
He noted that U.S. House Republicans had voted 37 times to repeal the Affordable Care Act: “Let’s stop refighting the old battles and start working … to make this law work the way it’s supposed to.”
Here is the White House video of the San Jose speech on Obamacare. (text continues)
Meanwhile, the Affordable Care Act was making news in Los Angeles, as President Bill Clinton urged a group of health care professionals to make the health care reform succeed in California.
“If this works in California, eventually America will follow your lead,” Clinton said in Los Angeles.
The former president said the legislative process in Washington, D.C., wouldn’t be of much help in addressing problems with the Affordable Care Act, however. Too many politicians “have acquired a vested interest in its failure,” Clinton told the California Assn. of Physician Groups.
Speaking at a separate ACA town hall meeting, state Sen. Ed Hernandez agreed with Clinton: “The success of the Affordable Care Act in this country is going to depend on the success of the exchange,” said Hernandez, D–West Covina, who has been busy pushing through the Assembly several key pieces of Obamacare legislation.
The state health insurance exchange, Covered California, sponsored the ACA town hall session in Los Angeles. The organization’s executive director, Peter Lee, urged attendees to get out the word about the application process beginning Oct. 1. “People need to be talking to their neighbors.”
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