Obama prods supporters to keep up health care fight
(CNN) – A worn-sounding President Obama urged his most ardent supporters Monday to maintain their drive enrolling Americans in his health law's exchanges, saying their support was even more essential now that it's clear a chunk of potential enrollees won't be able to use the troubled HealthCare.gov website.
The botched rollout of the site has "fed" misinformation about the Affordable Care Act, Obama added during an audio address to supporters of Organizing for Action, the political group that was formed from his 2012 re-election campaign.
Enrollment in the Obamacare exchanges has been "hampered by HealthCare.gov," Obama told his backers. "Eventually, it will be the easiest place to shop for health care. But because of the problems with the website, it has made it tougher for folks who were very interested in enrolling."
The President said that supporters of OFA, which has launched campaigns to education people about Obamacare, could help bridge the gap between the wonky website and enrollment in the health exchanges, encouraging them to use the upcoming holiday season to tell family and neighbors about the benefits of his signature law.
"We've got to get out there and get it done," he said, saying Christmas parties and gatherings at churches and synagogues were opportunities to educate people about the law.
"It's long race, and we're not near the tape yet. We've got to keep on running," he said.
On Monday, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney explained the administration expects 20% of potential Obamacare enrollees not to be able to use HealthCare.gov to sign up. Of that group, some have health or financial situations that are too complex for the website to handle, or are uncomfortable submitting the necessary information over the internet. Some will also be barred from using the website due to its technical problems.
"We've always understood that we are going to have to enroll people by mail, we're going to have to enroll people over the phone, we're going to have to enroll people in person. It turns out that purchasing insurance for a lot of folks is complicated. It's not something they've necessarily done before," Obama said on Monday.
The president ended his 14-minute remarks by hammering Republicans for blocking his judicial nominees, particularly for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
"This kind of obstructionism is unprecedented," Obama said, and called for Republicans to hold up-or-down votes on his picks for the bench.
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By all means lets keep pushing this horrible legislation. It was also announced today that the states got another $4.4 billion to build websites and do the roll out of Obamacare. So to date that would be $5 billion with a B to build websites and advertise. With 106k registered that means to date the taxpayer has paid $47,000 per registration and that doesn't include subsidies. Affordable health care, not that's funny.................
What happened to the Jessica Sanford story? Was it a little to embarrassing to admit there is nothing affordable about the affordable care act. Now you have to wonder how many of those 106k that signed up will be getting the letters notifying them the real cost will be two to three times the original quote! Since the states got $4.4 Billion for the roll out and we have $600 million on the website that works out to about $47,000 per registration to date and from what I now understand the quotes were wrong the first 23 days for many states. Our government couldn't run a lemonade stand.
Stay out of Obamacare. It's a mess. You don't need your name in there anywhere. Pay the fine and gamble you won't get sick. Life's too short to get tangled in Obamacare/
As soon as the website is up and running everything will be good.
The red states don't want their people to have healthcare so they need to change their party affiliation or vote for politicians who care about them and not the teaklans plans to destroy everything Obama.
lesson folks everyone is having problems with obamacare. will this problem persist is another story. we need roll up our sleeves, jump on in and make things happen. i think it was Kennedy that said ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. come on Americans nothing good in life is easy. this should give you motivation that because this is hard it must be good, all we need is patience folks, the website is getting better every day.