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President Obama Touts Affordable Care Act at White House. Aired 2-2:30p ET
Aired April 05, 2022 - 14:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[14:00:00]
BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: A high point of my time here, because it reminded me and it reminded us of what is possible.
But, of course, our work was not finished. Republicans tried to repeal what we had done again and again and again.
(LAUGHTER)
OBAMA: They filed lot lawsuits that went all the way to the Supreme Court three times.
I see Don Verrilli here, who had to defend a couple of them.
(APPLAUSE)
OBAMA: They tried explicitly to make it harder for people to sign up for coverage. And let's face it. It didn't help that, when we first rolled out the ACA, the Web site didn't work.
(LAUGHTER)
OBAMA: That was not one of my happiest moments.
(LAUGHTER)
OBAMA: So, given all the noise and the controversy and the skepticism, it took a while for the American people to understand what we had done.
But, lo and behold, a little later than I'd expected, a lot of folks, including many who had initially opposed health care reform, came around. And, today, the ACA hasn't just survived. It's pretty darn popular.
And the reason is because it's done what it was supposed to do. It's made a difference. First, 20 million and now 30 million people have gotten covered thanks to the ACA.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
OBAMA: It's prevented insurance companies from denying people coverage based on a preexisting condition. It's lowered prescription drug costs for 12 million seniors.
It's allowed young people to stay on their parents' plan until they're 26. It's eliminated lifetime limits on benefits that often put people in a jam. So we are incredibly proud of that work.
But the reason we're here today is because President Biden, Vice President Harris, everybody who's worked on this thing understood from the start that the ACA wasn't perfect. To get the bill passed, we had to make compromises. We didn't get everything we wanted.
That wasn't a reason not to do it. If you can get millions of people health coverage and better protection, it is, to quote a famous American, a pretty big deal.
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
(CROSSTALK)
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
OBAMA: A big deal.
But there were gaps to be filled. Even today, some patients still pay too much for their prescriptions. Some poor Americans are still falling through the cracks. In some cases, health care subsidies aren't where we want them to be, which means that some working families are still having trouble paying for their coverage.
Here's the thing. That's not unusual when we make major progress in this country. The original Social Security Act left out entire categories of people, like domestic workers and farmworkers. That had to be changed.
In the beginning, Medicare didn't provide all the benefits that it does today. That had to be changed. Throughout history, what you see is that it's important to get something started, to plant a flag, to lay a foundation for further progress.
The analogy I have used about the ACA before is that, in the same way that was true for early forms of Social Security and Medicare, it was a starter home.
(LAUGHTER)
OBAMA: It secured the principle of universal health care, provided help immediately to families. But it required us to continually build on it and make it better.
And President Biden understands that. And that's what he's done since the day he took office. As part of the American Rescue Plan, he lowered the cost of health care even further for millions of people. He made signing up easier. He made outreach to those who didn't know they could get covered, make sure that they knew, made that a priority. And as a result of these actions, he helped a record 14.5 million
Americans get covered during the most recent enrollment period.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
OBAMA: That, ladies and gentlemen, is what happens when you have an administration that's committed to making a program work.
[14:05:05]
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
OBAMA: And today -- today, the Biden-Harris administration is going even further by moving to fix a glitch in the regulations that will lower premiums for nearly one million people who need it and allow 200,000 more uninsured Americans to get access to coverage.
I'm a private citizen now, but I still take more than a passing interest in the course of our democracy.
(LAUGHTER)
OBAMA: But I'm outside the arena, and I know how discouraged people can get with Washington, Democrats, Republicans, independents. Everybody feels frustrated sometimes about what takes place in this town.
Progress feels way too slow sometimes. Victories are often incomplete. And in a country as big and as diverse as ours, consensus never comes easily. But what the Affordable Care Act shows is, if you are driven by the core idea that, together, we can improve the lives of this generation and the next, and if you're persistent, if you stay with it, and are willing to work through the obstacles and the criticism and continually improve where you fall short, you can make America better.
You can have an impact on millions of lives. You can help make sure folks don't have to lose their homes when they get sick, that they don't have to worry whether a loved one is going to get the treatment they need.
President Joe Biden understands that. He has dedicated his life to the proposition that there's something worthy about public service and that the reason to run for office is for days like today.
So, I could not be more honored to be here with him as he writes the next chapter in our story of progress. I'm grateful for all the people who have been involved in continuing to make the ACA everything it can be.
And it is now my great privilege to introduce the 46th president of the United States, Joe Biden.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
(APPLAUSE)
BIDEN: Please. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
BIDEN: Thank you, thank you, thank you. Please.
(APPLAUSE)
BIDEN: Please. Thank you.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
BIDEN: Thank you very much. Please.
My name is Joe Biden. I'm Barack Obama's vice president.
(LAUGHTER)
BIDEN: And I'm Jill Biden's husband.
(LAUGHTER)
BIDEN: By the way, the only reason Jill is not here today, she's working. She's teaching.
(LAUGHTER)
OBAMA: I hear you.
BIDEN: And so I just want you to know that's why she's not here.
Good afternoon, everyone.
Mr. President, welcome back to the White House, man. Feels like the good old days.
(APPLAUSE)
BIDEN: Being here with you brings back so many good memories. We just had lunch together, and we weren't sure who was supposed to sit where.
(LAUGHTER)
BIDEN: Look, it's fitting that the first time you return to the White House is to celebrate a law, a law that's transforming millions of lives because of you.
And I say because of you. You had a lot of help, the staff. And I helped a little bit. But it was because of you a law that shows hope leads to change. And you did that. You did it.
Let's be honest. The Affordable Care Act has been called a lot of things, but Obamacare is the most fitting. (LAUGHTER)
BIDEN: Obamacare.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
BIDEN: It's true.
(APPLAUSE)
BIDEN: I can tell you all how much Barack Obama cared about getting this done.
Throughout the countless hours of negotiations and the relentless political attacks, he never, ever, ever gave up. And I guarantee you that. If I had time, I could tell you all the times when he would say, should we compromise, should we -- and I would say, well, we have to think about this. No, if I do that, then so-and-so won't get covered, this group of people won't get covered.
[14:10:15]
And whether it was after meeting our -- during our weekly lunch, and we met every single day, he'd remind me why we're doing this in the first place. We were doing this in the first place for people who needed it and deserved to be treated with dignity. Dignity.
The idea that when you can't afford health insurance for your children, for your spouse, male or female, it doesn't matter. Not only are they in trouble, but you're deprived of your dignity.
Barack, you talked about the idea that was important that we make sure that you couldn't outrun your insurance. I can remember there with Beau, thinking to myself, what would I do if they walked in and said, you have outrun your time, man, and there was still 35 days to live?
The things that change people's lives. We both understood the Affordable Care Act wasn't about a single president or the presidency. It was about the countless, countless Americans lying in bed at night staring at the ceiling, wondering, my God. My God, what if I get really sick? What am I going to do? What are my family going to do? Will I lose the house?
Discussions we had in my house with my dad when he lost his health insurance. Who's going to pay for it? Who's going to take care of my family? You know, in America, health care, as we have all three said, will have now said, health care should be a right, not a privilege. And...
(APPLAUSE)
BIDEN: ... with the help of members of Congress, especially Nancy, and the advocates or families who are here today, 12 years ago last month, 12 years ago, we made a good effort toward that proposition, that it should be a right. When -- and, Barack, when you signed the Affordable Care Act into law,
it became the most consequential piece of health insurance -- most consequential piece of legislation, in my view, since the creation of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965.
It made a difference in people's lives every day. You just talked about where we were before the Affordable Care Act and what happened in the past 12 years to make life a lot better for people. I'd like to talk about where we go from here, because, because we knew back then, as Barack, as the president said, we knew that we had to keep strengthening this legislation.
Look, that's why I ran for president, and I promised to protect and build upon the Affordable Care Act. As soon as I entered office, that's exactly what Kamala and I did and what our administration and the Democrats in Congress here today did.
We passed the landmark American Rescue Plan, which not only helped us on COVID-19 get it under control and our economy back on track. It got millions more people insured under the Affordable Care Act. It made it easier for people to sign up for coverage in the middle of a pandemic. It opened a special enrollment to people and gave millions and millions of Americans more time to enroll.
It quadrupled the number of navigators out there in the communities helping people to sign up for coverage, because it's confusing to people. It's confusing.
The president has heard me say when we worked together. You know, how they would say, well, Biden and Obama are doing great on foreign policy. I said, you want to do something difficult, try health care.
(LAUGHTER)
BIDEN: Not a joke. Not a joke.
So, we continue to expand Medicaid. Missouri and Oklahoma became the 37th and 38th states to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.
(APPLAUSE)
BIDEN: And, as I mentioned, over 31 million people now have health insurance through the Affordable Care Act. Four out of five Americans can find quality coverage for under $10 a month.
(APPLAUSE)
BIDEN: The average family -- the average family is saving $2,400 a year on their premiums. That's $200 every single month available for other needs in their lives from gas to groceries to other basic necessities.
[14:15:02]
The bottom line is this. The Affordable Care Act is stronger now than it has ever been. And today... (APPLAUSE)
BIDEN: And I'm not even talking about what your former chief of staff is doing to make sure health care is available to all our veterans in the way he did.
OBAMA: Yes.
(APPLAUSE)
BIDEN: And, today, we're strengthening it even further.
In a moment, I'm going to sign an executive order building on one of those that I signed last year. It directs federal agencies to continue doing everything in their power, everything in their power, to expand quality and affordable health care coverage, making it easier for people to enroll in and keep their coverage, helping people better understand their coverage options, and to pick, to be able to pick the best option for that family.
Taking steps to strengthen benefits, lower costs, and expand eligibility. Protecting Americans from low-quality coverage that can lead to a mountain of medical debt. And, folks, and, separately, it's time to fix what we refer to as the family glitch.
Now, the family glitch, all everybody in this room probably knows what it is.
(LAUGHTER)
BIDEN: But it's a common issue facing five million Americans who can't get financial help to get coverage under the Affordable Care Act.
Here's the problem. Under the current rules, a working mom is told, as long as she can afford employer-based coverage for herself, she can't qualify for premium subsidies to afford coverage for her family. Cover her, but not her family.
We're working to change that.
(APPLAUSE)
BIDEN: Once today's proposed rule is finalized, starting next year, working families in America will get the help they need to afford full family coverage, everyone in the family.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
BIDEN: As a result, as a result, families will be saving hundreds of dollars a month. With this change, it's estimated that 200,000 presently uninsured Americans are going to gain coverage.
Nearly one million Americans will see their coverage become more affordable. This is considered one of the biggest things my administration can do, lower costs and expand coverage. And we're taking steps today to get that done.
So, look, folks, but we need -- we need to keep up the fight. Our Republican colleagues, as they say in Southern Delaware, they haven't changed a whole hell of a lot.
(LAUGHTER)
BIDEN: Good folks, but They haven't changed a lot. They continue to attack the Affordable Care Act. They're unrelenting, unrelenting. They haven't stopped.
Mr. President, since you signed the law, they haven't stopped for one second, multiple court challenges you mentioned, sabotage from the previous administration, over 70 attempts to repeal the law by Republicans in Congress.
In fact, just last month, the distinguished senator from Wisconsin said, if Republicans get back in power, they should try to repeal the Affordable Care Act again, again try. Today, 12 years later, Republicans have not stopped their attacks on this lifesaving law.
So, pay very close attention, folks. If Republicans have their way, it means 100 million Americans with preexisting conditions can once again be denied health care coverage by their insurance companies. That's what the law was before Obamacare.
In addition, tens of millions of Americans could lose their coverage, including young people who will no longer be able to stay on their parents' insurance policy until age 26. Premiums are going to go through the roof.
Well, I got a better idea. Instead of destroying the Affordable Care Act, let's keep building on it. Let's extend it, extend.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
BIDEN: Because of all the folks in this room and members of Congress, the American Rescue Plan, subsidies -- subsidizes that are lowering premiums -- subsidies lowering premiums and extending coverage.
And I got a little practice when you gave me that other act, when we were president -- you were president and I was with you.
[14:20:04]
(LAUGHTER)
BIDEN: Look, close the Medicaid coverage gap that locks nearly four million Americans out of coverage just because their states refuse to expand Medicaid.
Lower prescription drug costs, which was mentioned already, by allowing Medicare to negotiate prices for drugs that are on the market. We can do this. We should do this. We have to do this.
But let me close with this. Twelve years ago, at a bill signing of the Affordable Care Act,
President Obama said -- quote -- "We're a nation that does what is hard, what is necessary, and what is right."
And that's exactly what he did, exactly what he did. And, folks, that's what we have to do. That's what we do as Americans.
You know, it's what all of you did here in making the Affordable Care Act possible. I really mean it. We just keep -- we just got to keep it going and keep building on it. We need to keep the faith, and we need to remember we're the United States of America.
And there is simply, literally, nothing beyond our capacity when we're united and do it together.
So, god bless you all. May God protect our troops.
And now I'm going to sign an executive order.
And, Barack, let me remind you, it's a hot mic.
(LAUGHTER)
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: OK, you have been watching President Biden there talking about the Affordable Care Act. Of course, he's with former President Barack Obama.
He just made a funny joke about a hot mic because he was once caught on a hot mic saying something about it. Let's listen in for a second to what he is saying.
BIDEN: Barack Obama could sign his name using nine different pens.
(LAUGHTER)
BIDEN: I'm going to use one.
(LAUGHTER)
CAMEROTA: He is now signing this executive order to make it go further, to make the Affordable Care Act work better, he said.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: Yes, President Obama's first public appearance at the White House since leaving the White House in 2017.
We heard the remarks there -- that first pen there went to the former president.
Let's talk now about what this new executive order does, the ACA, moving forward, and this moment for the current president and a former president. Bring in CNN senior White House correspondent Phil Mattingly, CNN senior political analyst Nia-Malika Henderson. And Dr. Zeke Emanuel, he is a former policy adviser under President Obama and the architect of the Affordable Care Act.
Phil, let me start with you. We're going to get to the executive order in just a moment.
But this image of President Obama back at the White House, the White House could have done this without bringing him back, without making this -- creating this moment. Why did it?
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Felt a little bit like old home week, or, as President Biden referred to it, the good old days?
Look, they're doing it to -- I think it's actually pretty clear -- to highlight two things that are now popular that maybe during President Obama's first midterm weren't, President Obama, former President Obama, and the Affordable Care Act.
Look, there's no actual anniversary on this date. It's been 12 years, and I think 14 or 15 days since the bill was signed into law, the Affordable Care Act. This is a -- quote, unquote -- "celebration," according to White House officials. It's not necessarily pegged to any specific event.
But what it is pegged to is a moment in time where White House officials are really doing everything in their power to punch through to the American public what the president is working on and doing on the domestic front.
Obviously, they know where his approval ratings stand. They know that higher prices across the board, health care being one of those primary issues, are a central concern of the American people.
And they want to highlight that, over the course of the last 14 months, a law that, when it was signed by President Obama and many years after that, was often complicated, complex, had a rocky path on several fronts, as the former president alluded to, also giving a shout out to the solicitor general, Donald Verrilli, who actually defended the law in front of the Supreme Court multiple times.
That it is now in a very different place, in large part because of the actions taken by President Biden, either through expanded subsidies that were put into place by the American Rescue Plan the administration is now trying to extend, either through a series of regulatory actions, including the one today related to the family glitch, which have expanded access to coverage, access to those subsidies.
These are very real changes that have put this law in a very different place, frankly, a place that I think President Obama and a lot of his staffers who are either, A, working in this current White House who were sitting in the crowd there, longed for it to be when it was signed into law and in the years after that. [14:25:13]
They wanted to highlight that today. They don't feel like it has gotten enough attention. And, obviously, in this current news environment, where all of the focus, rightfully so, is on what's happening in Ukraine, they want to underscore that President Biden and his team are still very focused on the domestic issues that matter so much to the American public.
CAMEROTA: Zeke, obviously, it has been a long and winding road, as the president alluded, to get here, all of the challenges, all the obstructionism, as President Obama was talking about that.
Is this where you thought it would be 12 years in? And, specifically, I'm talking about, still, the levels of the uninsured Americans are still higher than I remember 12 years ago it being billed as? Back then, it was something like 40-million plus. I think, today, it's still 31 million Americans are without health insurance.
What are your thoughts?
DR. EZEKIEL EMANUEL, FORMER WHITE HOUSE SPECIAL ADVISER: Well, in 2013, right before enrollment increased, the exchanges opened, the uninsured rate was 16.8 percent.
Today, it's about 10 percent. That is a huge drop. And let's also remember that, because of a Supreme Court ruling, 12 states, as Vice President Harris said, still haven't expanded Medicaid, which would allow another four million people to get health coverage.
There's also a number of -- something like 17 million people who are eligible for the exchanges and haven't gotten insurance because of what President Biden said, the complexity of the system. there are a number of people who are eligible -- I think it's about 10 million people who are eligible for Medicaid haven't been enrolled because of various barriers and complexities that are put in their place.
So we have still work to do, a lot of eligible people that have to get enrolled. So there are certainly -- we wish we were further, but we have, as President Obama set, a framework to get to universal coverage.
BLACKWELL: Nia, let's talk about what Phil just mentioned, the turnaround if public opinion on the Affordable Care Act.
We have got a poll that shows, in April of 2010 -- this, of course, is before that, as President Obama then called it, the shellacking of the midterm, six-point spread on favorability there, now 13 points for the Affordable Care Act. Now, this may not be what Democrats run on in November.
But how much do you expect we will see and hear from President Obama, as we know where President Biden's approval ratings are?
NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Yes, listen, he and his wife are still the most popular Democrats in the country. If you are Joe Biden, if you are Democrats who are running in states all across the country, you want popular people who connect with the Democratic base out there touting the Democratic Party, touting what the party has delivered.
That was what this was about, really. It was about arguing for Democrats staying in power, arguing that they are better than Republicans. You heard at the end there Joe Biden talk about Republicans still coming for the Affordable Care Act.
They're doing it in the same way we saw in years past. You rarely hear Republicans talk about a repeal and replace. They, of course, tried to do that and failed. But that will be the basic framework, that Democrats can deliver the sort of bread-and-butter, kitchen table issues that voters are worried about.
And we see that in the polling. Of course, there is a concern about inflation, concern about gas prices, concern about grocery prices. There also is almost a consistent concern among Americans about health care prices and whether or not, if they get injured, if they have some sort of accident, whether or not that will bankrupt their family.
So you hear Joe Biden there saying he is pushing for expanded coverage. He's pushing to make it easier for Americans to sign up as well. And you see that in some of the polling. It's more popular than ever. You have got more people signed up than ever. I think it's 31 million.
And it could be that this could work for the Democrats in the way that it worked in 2018. It was terrible, Obamacare for Democrats in 2010 and 2014. But, in 2018, they very much used it to their advantage, saying that Republicans were going to strip away some of that care.
BLACKWELL: Yes.
HENDERSON: And you saw Joe Biden refer to that as well.
Listen, we will see if it works. They're -- sort of the wind is at the GOP back going into November, just because of the way everything falls at the feet of whatever the party is that's in power. But they have got to figure out a way to connect with voters, and particularly base voters that largely don't show up in the same way that other voters show up in midterms.
