In President Obama’s first address to Congress, he promised Americans he would immediately start working toward healthcare reform. Eight years later, he’s taking a final victory lap as his healthcare law nears the end of its third enrollment season.
“Nearly 18 million have gained coverage so far. Health care inflation has slowed. And our businesses have created jobs every single month since it became law,” Obama told the joint session of Congress Tuesday night.
The Affordable Care Act, Obama said, has joined the ranks of other big federal programs such as Medicare and Social Security that give Americans security even among changing economic conditions.
“That’s what the Affordable Care Act is all about,” he said. “It’s about filling the gaps in employer-based care so that when we lose a job, or go back to school, or start that new business, we’ll still have coverage.”
Obama applauded the law for extending health insurance to millions of Americans, while not mentioning some of its biggest struggles, such as healthcare.gov’s rocky rollout or recent financial losses by insurers selling Obamacare plans. But he did acknowledge the persistent political battles that have constantly dogged the law during its rollout, calling for lawmakers to set aside divides to improve economic security in new ways, such as expanding unemployment insurance.
“Now, I’m guessing we won’t agree on healthcare anytime soon,” Obama said. “But there should be other ways both parties can improve economic security.”
Few could have predicted the long path ahead for the Affordable Care Act when Congress passed it a year into Obama’s presidency. The extensive law has mostly emerged intact from two major Supreme Court challenges, repeated Republican efforts to repeal it and an initial, glitchy launch of healthcare.gov that proved a major embarrassment for the administration.
The third enrollment season in the law’s new insurance marketplaces will end this month, and while far fewer Americans have received coverage than the Congressional Budget Office initially projected, the law has still caused the uninsured rate to plummet.
Obama had campaigned on passing healthcare reform, and used his speech to Congress to launch that effort.
“I suffer no illusions that this will be an easy process,” Obama said in 2009. “It will be hard. But I also know that nearly a century after Teddy Roosevelt first called for reform, the cost of our healthcare has weighed down our economy and the conscience of our nation long enough.”
“So let there be no doubt: health care reform cannot wait, it must not wait, and it will not wait another year,” he added.
