Remarks by the President on the Affordable Care Act
Miami Dade College
Miami, Florida
1:51 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Hello, Miami! (Applause.) Thank you so much. Well, everybody have a seat. Have a seat. It is good to see all of you! It's good to be back at Miami-Dade! (Applause.) One of my favorite institutions! (Applause.) Love this school.
I want to thank your longtime president and great friend, Eduardo J. Padrón. (Applause.) And to all the faculty and staff, and of course, most importantly, the students, for hosting me -- I want to say how grateful I am. I want to thank the wonderful elected officials who are here today. I'm going to just point out two outstanding members of Congress -- Debbie Wasserman Schultz -- (applause) -- and Ted Deutch. (Applause.)
So this is one of my last visits here as President. Now, once I'm not President --
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Nooo --
THE PRESIDENT: No, no, the good news is, once I'm no longer President I can come more often. (Applause.) Right now, usually I can only come to Florida when I'm working. But when I'm out of office, I can come here for fun. (Laughter.)
But the first thing I want to say is thank you for your support, and thank you for the opportunity and the privilege you’ve given me to serve these past eight years. I remember standing just a few blocks north of here in the closing days of the 2008 campaign. And at that point, we were already realizing that we were in the midst of the worst economic crisis of our lifetimes. We didn’t know where the bottom would be. We were still in the middle of two wars. Over 150,000 of our troops were overseas. But thanks to the hard work and the determination of the American people, when I come here today the story is different.
Working together, we’ve cut the unemployment rate in Florida by more than half. Across the country, we turned years of job losses into the longest streak of job creation on record. We slashed our dependence on foreign oil, doubled our production of renewable energy. Incomes are rising again -- they rose more last year than any time ever recorded. Poverty is falling -- fell more last year than any time since 1968. Our graduation rates from high school are at record highs. College enrollment is significantly higher than it was when we came into office. Marriage equality is a reality in all 50 states. (Applause.)
So we've been busy. This is why I've got gray hair. (Laughter.) But we did one other thing. We fought to make sure that in America, health care is not just a privilege, but a right for every single American. And that’s what I want to talk about today. (Applause.) That's what I want to talk about here today.
You’ve heard a lot about Obamacare, as it's come to be known. You heard a lot about it in the six and a half years since I signed it into law. And some of the things you heard might even be true. But one thing I want to start with is just reminding people why it is that we fought for health reform in the first place. Because it was one of the key motivators in my campaign.
And it wasn’t just because rising health costs were eating into workers’ paychecks and straining budgets for businesses and for governments. It wasn’t just because, before the law was passed, insurance companies could just drop your coverage because you got sick, right at the time you needed insurance most.
It was because of you. It was because of the stories that I was hearing all around the country, and right here in Florida -- hearing from people who had been forced to fight a broken health care system at the same time as they were fighting to get well.
It was about children like Zoe Lihn, who needed heart surgery when she was just 15 hours old -- just a baby, just a infant. And she was halfway to hitting her lifetime insurance cap before she was old enough to walk. Her parents had no idea how they could possibly make sure that she continued to make progress. And today, because of the Affordable Care Act, Zoe is in first grade and she’s loving martial arts. And she’s got a bright future ahead of her. (Applause.)
We fought so hard for health reform because of women like Amanda Heidel, who lives here in South Florida. As a girl, she was diagnosed with diabetes -- and that's a disease with costs that can add up quickly if you don't have insurance, can eat away at your dreams. But thanks to the Affordable Care Act, Amanda got to stay on her parents’ plan after college. When she turned 26, Amanda went online, she shopped for an affordable health insurance plan that covered her medications. Today, she’s pursuing a doctorate in psychology. And Amanda said that the Affordable Care Act “has given me the security and freedom to choose how I live my life.” The freedom and security to choose how I live my life. That's what this was all about.
Zoe and Amanda, the people who I get letters from every single day describing what it meant not to fear that if they got sick, or a member of their family got sick, if they, heaven forbid, were in an accident, that somehow they could lose everything.
So because of this law, because of Obamacare, another 20 million Americans now know the financial security of health insurance. So do another 3 million children, thanks in large part to the Affordable Care Act and the improvements, the enhancements that we made to the Children’s Health Insurance Program. And the net result is that never in American history has the uninsured rate been lower than it is today. Never. (Applause.) And that’s true across the board. It's dropped among women. It's dropped among Latinos and African Americans, every other demographic group. It's worked.
Now, that doesn’t mean that it’s perfect. No law is. And it's true that a lot of the noise around the health care debate, ever since we tried to pass this law, has been nothing more than politics. But we’ve also always known -- and I have always said -- that for all the good that the Affordable Care Act is doing right now -- for as big a step forward as it was -- it's still just a first step. It's like building a starter home -- or buying a starter home. It's a lot better than not having a home, but you hope that over time you make some improvements.
And in fact, since we first signed the law, we’ve already taken a number of steps to improve it. And we can do even more -- but only if we put aside all the politics rhetoric, all the partisanship, and just be honest about what’s working, what needs fixing and how we fix it.
So that's what I want to do today. This isn't kind of a rah-rah speech. I might get into the details. I hope you don’t mind. (Laughter.)
So let's start with a basic fact. The majority of Americans do not -- let me repeat -- do not get health care through the Affordable Care Act. Eighty percent or so of Americans get health care on the job, through their employer, or they get health care through Medicaid, or they get health care through Medicare. And so for most Americans, the Affordable Care Act, Obama, has not affected your coverage -- except to make it stronger.
Because of the law, you now have free preventive care. Insurance companies have to offer that in whatever policy they sell. Because of the law, you now have free checkups for women. Because of the law, you get free mammograms. (Applause.) Because of the law, it is harder for insurance companies to discriminate against you because you're a woman when you get health insurance. (Applause.) Because of the law, doctors are finding better ways to perform heart surgeries and delivering healthier babies, and treating chronic disease, and reducing the number of people that, once they're in the hospital, end up having to return to the hospital.
So you’re getting better quality even though you don’t know that Obamacare is doing it.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thanks, Obama.
THE PRESIDENT: Thanks, Obama. (Laughter and applause.)
Because of the law, your annual out-of-pocket spending is capped. Seniors get discounts on their prescription drugs because of the law. Young people can stay on their parents' plan -- just like Amanda did -- because of the law. (Applause.) And Amanda was able to stay on her parents' plan and then get insurance after she aged out, even though she has what used to be called a preexisting condition -- because we made it illegal to discriminate against people with preexisting conditions. (Applause.)
By the way, before this law, before Obamacare, health insurance rates for everybody -- whether you got your insurance on the job, or you were buying it on your own -- health insurance rates generally were going up really fast. This law has actually slowed down the pace of health care inflation. So, every year premiums have gone up, but they've gone up the slowest in 50 years since Obamacare was passed. In fact, if your family gets insurance through your job, your family is paying, on average, about $3,600 less per year than you would be if the cost trends that had existed before the law were passed had continued. Think about that. That's money in your pocket.
Now, some people may say, well, I've seen my copays go up, or my networks have changed. But these are decisions that are made by your employers. It's not because of Obamacare. They're not determined by the Affordable Care Act.
So if the Affordable Care Act, if Obamacare hasn’t changed the coverage of the 80 percent of Americans who already had insurance, except to make it a better value, except to make it more reliable, how has the law impacted the other 15 or 20 percent of Americans who didn’t have health insurance through their job, or didn’t qualify for Medicaid, or didn’t qualify for Medicare?
Well, before the Affordable Care Act, frankly, you were probably out of luck. Either you had to buy health insurance on your own, because you weren’t getting it through the job, and it was wildly expensive, and your premiums were going up all the time, and if you happened to get sick and use the insurance, the insurer the next year could drop you. And if you had had an illness like cancer or diabetes, or some other chronic disease, you couldn’t buy new insurance because the insurance company's attitude was, you know what, this is just going to cost us money, we don’t want to insure you.
So if you were trying to buy health insurance on your own, it was either hugely expensive or didn’t provide very effective coverage. You might buy a policy thinking that it was going to cover you. It was sort of like when I was young and I bought my first car, I had to buy car insurance. And I won’t name the insurance company, but I bought the insurance because it was the law, and I got the cheapest one I could get, because I didn’t have any money -- and it was a really beat-up car. (Laughter.) And I remember somebody rear-ends me, and I call up the insurance company, thinking maybe I can get some help, and they laughed at me. They're all like, what, are you kidding? (Laughter.) It didn’t provide any coverage other than essentially allowing me to drive. (Laughter.)
Well, that's what it was like for a lot of people who didn’t have health insurance on the job. So that meant that a lot of people just didn’t bother getting health insurance at all. And when they got sick, they'd have to go to the emergency room.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Inaudible.)
THE PRESIDENT: Well, that's true, too.
And so you're relying on the emergency room, but the emergency room is the most expensive place to get care. And because you weren’t insured, the hospital would have to give you the care for free, and they would have to then make up for those costs by charging everybody else more money. So it wasn’t good for anybody.
So what the Affordable Care Act is designed to do is to help those people who were previously either uninsured or underinsured. And it worked to help those people in two ways.
First, we gave states funding to expand Medicaid to cover more people. In D.C. and the 31 states that took us up on that, more than 4 million people have coverage who didn’t have it before. They now have health insurance.
Second, for people who made too much to qualify for Medicaid even after we expanded it, we set up what we call marketplaces on HealthCare.gov, so you could shop for a plan that fits your needs, and then we would give you tax credits to help you buy it. And most people today can find a plan for less than $75 a month at the HealthCare.gov marketplace when you include the tax credits that government is giving you. That means it's less than your cellphone bill -- because I know you guys are tweeting a lot -- (laughter) -- and texting and selfies. (Laughter.) And the good news is, is that most people who end up buying their coverage through the marketplaces, using these tax credits, are satisfied with their plans.
So not only did Obamacare do a lot of good for the 80-plus percent of Americans who already had health care, but now it gave a new affordable option to a lot of folks who never had options before. All told, about another 10 percent of the country now have coverage.
The Affordable Care Act has done what it was designed to do: It gave us affordable health care.
So what’s the problem? Why is there still such a fuss? Well, part of the problem is the fact that a Democratic President named Barack Obama passed the law. (Applause.) And that's just the truth. (Laughter.) I mean, I worked really, really hard to engage Republicans; took Republican ideas that originally they had praised; said, let's work together to get this done. And when they just refused to do anything, we said, all right, we're going to have to do it with Democrats. And that's what we did.
And early on, Republicans just decided to oppose it. And then they tried to scare people with all kinds of predictions -- that it would be a job-killer; that it would force everyone into government-run insurance; that it would lead to rationing; that it would lead to death panels; that it would bankrupt the federal government. You remember all this. And despite the fact that all the bad things they predicted have not actually happened -- despite the fact that we've created more jobs since the bill passed in consecutive months than any time on record -- (applause) -- despite the fact that the uninsured rate has gone down to its lowest levels ever, despite that fact that it's actually cost less than anybody anticipated and has shown to be much less disruptive on existing plans that people get through their employers, despite the fact that it saved Medicare over $150 billion -- which makes that program more secure -- despite all this, it's been hard, if not impossible, for any Republican to admit it.
They just can't admit that a lot of good things have happened and the bad things they predicted didn’t happen. So they just keep on repeating, we're going to repeal it. We're going to repeal it, and we're going to replace it with something better -- even though, six and a half years later, they haven’t -- they still haven’t shown us what it is that they would do that would be better.
But -- and this is actually the main reason I'm here -- just because a lot of the Republican criticism has proven to be false and politically motivated doesn’t mean that there aren’t some legitimate concerns about how the law is working now. And the main issue has to do with the folks who still aren’t getting enough help. Remember, I said 80 percent of people, even before the law passed, already had health insurance. And then we expanded Medicaid, and we set up the marketplaces, and another 10 percent of people got health insurance. Well, but that still leaves that last 10 percent. And the fact that that last 10 percent still has difficulties is something that we've got to do something about.
Read more HERE!
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-offic... Do you remember the Historic day the ACA was passed and signed into law? Remember the days of pre-existing conditions? Take a moment to witness how fortunate we really are to have Affordable Healthcare in America at:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2016/10/19... This is a great Teaching and learning opportunity demonstrating an awesome Administration that really had the people’s needs first!
Please share this information, #GETCOVERED, and keep the conversation going!
Posted By: agnes levine
Monday, October 31st 2016 at 8:27AM
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