President Obama Insists Obamacare 'Working'

President Obama Insists Obamacare 'Working'

On Friday, President Barack Obama said that his signature healthcare law, the Affordable Care Act is “working”–just one day after his administration declared that Obamacare was a “hardship.” 

Americans can now buy “catastrophic” insurance plans if they have received cancellation notices and have not been able to purchase insurance on HealthCare.gov. These were plans that the President had previously described as junk. 

“The basic structure of that law is working, despite all the problems,” Obama said at his year-end press conference. “Despite the website problems, despite the messaging problems, despite all that, it’s working. And again, you don’t have to take my word for it.”

Obama then claimed, “We’ve got a couple million people who are going to have health insurance just in the first three months, despite the fact that probably the first month and a half was lost because of problems with the website and about as bad a bunch of publicity as you could imagine.”

Before the disastrous HealthCare.Gov and Obamacare launch on October 1, the Obama administration already exempted businesses and Congress from the law. Those exemptions were denied to Americans who were promised they could keep their insurance plans and doctors. 

Now, by claiming “hardship,” even Americans who are over 30 years of age can purchase “catastrophic” insurance plans the Obama administration once said were unsuitable. By doing so, they will be exempt from the individual mandate for at least a year. And though the Obama administration claimed that only 500,000 people would qualify for “catastrophic” plans, over 1.3 million health insurance plans have been canceled in Florida, California, and New Jersey along, which means the Obama administration’s estimate was overly optimistic, to say the least. 

Even though the administration has constantly pushed Obamacare via various public service announcements in e-mails and tweets, he alleged that Obamacare, the product, was “good.” At the same press conference, he admitted that he “screwed up” the healthcare rollout. 

Nonetheless, Obama insisted that his signature legislation is “working.” 

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