Obama’s last month: ‘Obamacare’ defense, Chicago speech
ASSOCIATED PRESS
President Barack Obama spoke during a Dec. 16 news conference in the briefing room of the White House in Washington. Obama will strategize next week with Democratic lawmakers about how to prevent Republicans from destroying his Affordable Care Act. He’ll also give a speech in Chicago on Jan. 10 that is expected to be his closing message as president.
Eager to stop Republicans from destroying his signature health care law, President Barack Obama and Democratic lawmakers will meet next week to try to forge a common strategy. Obama also plans a major valedictory speech in Chicago, his hometown, shortly before his presidency ends.
Obama will travel to the Capitol on Wednesday morning for the meeting with House and Senate Democrats, according to an invitation sent to lawmakers. The White House is casting it as an effort to unite Democrats behind a plan to protect the law, known as the Affordable Care Act, before Republicans have a chance to settle on their own plan for repealing it.
Democrats are on edge over the future of the ACA, given the GOP’s disdain for “Obamacare” and President-elect Donald Trump’s vows to gut it. Though Republicans are united behind the notion of repealing the law, they’re split over how best to replace it. Some want to strip out unpopular provisions while leaving others intact, while other Republicans prefer a start-from-scratch approach.
It’s that lack of unanimity among Republicans that Obama and Democrats hope can be exploited, if they can lay the groundwork even before Trump takes office. To that end, Obama also planned to answer questions about the future of the health care law next Friday during a livestreamed event at Blair House, just across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House.
Initially stunned by the defeat of Hillary Clinton, Democrats are now trying to organize a counter-attack to preserve the ACA, among the most significant expansions of the social safety net since Medicare and Medicaid were created 50 years ago. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi has urged her lawmakers to make health care their focus at the start of the year.
Defenders of the law have also launched a political coalition called “Protect Our Care,” bringing together more than 20 groups, including the NAACP and the Service Employees International Union.
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One of their objectives is to try to prevent Republicans from repealing the ACA without also enacting a replacement. (Currently Republicans plan to quickly vote on repealing the law, and delay the effective date to give them time to craft a replacement.) Another goal for Democrats is to pre-empt bigger health care changes to Medicare and Medicaid long sought by Republicans.
Since the ACA passed, about 20 million people have gained coverage and the uninsured rate has dropped to a historic low of around 9 percent. Some of the coverage gains are due to employers offering jobs with health care in a stronger economy, but most experts mainly credit Obama’s law.
A recent poll suggests that defenders of the law may get a receptive hearing from the public. Only about 1 in 4 Americans want Trump and the GOP-led Congress to completely repeal the ACA, according to a post-election survey by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation.
“Republicans don’t fully appreciate the implications of even a partial repeal of the ACA,” said Rob Restuccia, executive director of Community Catalyst, one of the advocacy groups in the coalition trying to preserve the law. “People use the analogy of the dog that caught the car.”
Obama’s speech in Chicago on Jan. 10 is expected to serve as his closing words to the nation as president. His appearance will be open to the public and followed by a “family reunion” for alumni of Obama’s former campaigns, according to a save-the-date notice sent to Obama alumni and obtained by The Associated Press.
The White House has not confirmed Obama’s speech or trip to Chicago.
White House Correspondent Julie Pace and AP writer Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar contributed to this report.
20 responses to “Obama’s last month: ‘Obamacare’ defense, Chicago speech”
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Too bad so sad, Barry al-Hussein is on his way out the door. A man who was in way over his head from day one. But with the benefit of affirmative action, a protective media and millions of low information supporters he managed to get elected twice. His fundamental transformation worked well for a little while until the public wised up and realized he was just another America hating Marxist with an Ivy League degree. Barry’s legacy on the domestic front is upending traditional social norms, waging war on law enforcement as the inner cities burn, totally screwing up health care and using the IRS as enforcement storm troopers, pitting racial groups against one another, purposely allowed unvetted “refugees” from terror hotspots into the country, and a choking national debt. Internationally he and his State Dept. have totally screwed up an already fragile middle east as Russia and China have flexed their muscles unchallenged. On a positive note his incompetence, arrogance and more recently his scorched earth temper tantrums has resulted in huge gains for the republican party as the democrat party is rudderless and out of ideas.
P.S. AP please stop identifying the Kaiser Family Foundation as “non-partisan”. It’s insulting and untruthful.
agree also all those muslim refugees and illegal aliens get Obama care for free while we taxpayers pay for there free medical.
And VETS getting the short end of the stick!
A Community Organizer?…proof it did not work while the libs still won’t admit it…or come to the reality it was their biggest mistake! Look at where they are now…TOTAL DISARRAY level and fallin faster with every day that passes.
MAHALO O
January 20, 2017 #MAGA
Your comments are just so sad and pathetic. And not true, of course. Nothing new there.
Affirmative action? Why use dog whistles? Just say that you are put off by the fact that he’s black. Mr. Trump has made it acceptable for overt racists to avoid code. Just come right out with it.
When you look at little Barry you see a black man. When I look at little Barry I see a white man. Who is correct? And by the way, my opposition to little Barry only applies to his white half. I give his black side a pass in accordance with progressive orthodoxy.
klassless if you would have watched you favorite CNN news channel when I flipped through it showed a refugee family that came in to the U.S. to live all refugees get 1200 dollars and free welfare and free medicare and medicade for up to 5 years or until they get a job. so your comment is sad and pathetic.
“the fact that he’s black”? Hey astri, you do know that Odummy is as much WHITE as he is black, right. You’re the racist injecting color into this. YOU are “sad and patheic”, scab.
Mr. Obama identifies himself as black.
Your opinion about his race is totally worthless. Like the rest of your comments here.
Klastri, your opinion about anything is totally worthless like the rest of your comments. You haven’t been right yet. Double digit leads, landslides? You give Frank De Lima rub. I heard EK Fernandez is looking for clowns. Happy New Year. Better get rid of your 2016 playbook.
How can one half baked black screw up so many times and you still think he’s the greatest since sliced bread. You’ve been living in the swamp too long. Keep it up. Very entertaining.
IRT Klastri, Happy New Year. Hawaii born President Obama is an American. Period.
IRT CEI, completely agree with your post. History will write that Hawaii born President Obama accomplished nothing during his eight years in office.
Barry, you’re in a hole. Get off the excavator and walk away.
OBAMACARE….hand in hand with the WORST potus in American history!
Agreed and the 19 Trillion $$$ debt was not even mentioned!!!
For the next week, not only will there be no U.S. Navy aircraft carrier in the Middle East, but there will be no American aircraft carriers deployed at sea anywhere else in the world, despite a host of worldwide threats facing the United States.
Then he’s going to go to his other “home state” of Chicago which has become the armpit city of America under his watch to blow hot air about how good of a job he’s done as President. Ridiculousness at it’s finest. Just go away please!
“Chicago which has become the armpit city of America”
LOL ^5
IRT latenightroach: What’s the big deal? The important thing is that members of the military can now undergo taxpayer funded “gender reassignment” if they so desire. That’s far more urgent than projecting American power with a bunch of useless aircraft carriers.
20 more days then America will start to be great again!!!! I am not a democratic, I am not a republican, I am a combat Vietnam veteran hoping that America can be great again!
adios barry..soon you can go with the rest of your a’ama ohana on papahanaumokuakea
auwe!