President Obama admitted his healthcare law has “real problems,” but argued in a wide-ranging interview with New York Magazine released late Sunday that those problems are fixable.
“In my mind, the [Affordable Care Act] has been a huge success, but it’s got real problems,” Obama told the magazine. “They’re eminently fixable problems in terms of strengthening the marketplace, improving the subsidies so more folks can get it, making sure everybody has Medicaid who was qualified under the original legislation, doing more on the cost containment.
“But you hit a point where if Congress just is not willing to make any constructive modifications and it’s all political football, then you’re getting a suboptimal solution,” Obama continued, referring to repeated efforts by the GOP-led Congress to repeal the law.
Obamacare has extended coverage to millions of previously uninsured Americans, but has been the subject of negative headlines as insurers have had to hike rates and drop out of its new insurance marketplaces.
The president recalled the legislative maneuverings by Democrats to get the law passed, even though they had just lost a 60-seat majority in the Senate. He praised members of his party for pushing the legislation through, even though it wasn’t politically expedient for them and many members later lost their seats over it.
“For all its warts and all the mistakes that any political party makes — catering to the interest groups that help get people elected — the truth is that the ACA vote showed that when push came to shove and people had to do something they thought was right, even if it was not going to be helpful to their reelection, the majority of Democrats were willing to do it,” Obama said.
