President Obama was pressed on Thursday to explain why healthcare costs keep rising, despite the passage and implementation of Obamacare, during a question-and-answer session hosted by Twitter.
“#AskPOTUS I love the ACA I still don’t understand why costs in health care keep rising. I have friends who go to Mex for things. Rx etc,” tweeted Shirley Pereira using the account @shirleyp_2009.
In his response, the president claimed that inflation for healthcare costs is the lowest that has been in 20 years and credited Obamacare for that progress. He did acknowledge, however, that insurance companies are now passing on more costs to workers through “copays, etc.”
“[H]ealth care inflation lowest in decades since ACA passed; problem is more costs passed to workers thru copays, etc.,” he tweeted.
The statement echoed a similar assertion Obama made in his State of the Union speech Tuesday night, when he said, “healthcare inflation has slowed.”
But as a Forbes article pointed out this week, Obama’s is misusing the term “inflation,” which is a sustained increase in the general level of prices. Instead, the president is referring to healthcare spending, which is prices multiplied by quantity, that article pointed out.
And even then, Americans are still spending more on healthcare than they did before Obamacare, so it would be more accurate for the president to say the rate of spending growth is lower than it was before but it is still climbing, the article said.
The president’s Twitter Q&A was short. He took just nine questions, ranging from his favorite basketball player to gun control, climate change, prejudice against Muslims, Medicaid and campaign-finance reform.
Obama told Twitter users that his best memory in office occurred the night that the Affordable Care Act passed, when he was celebrating with all the White House staff who worked on it.
“The night the ACA passed; standing on truman balcony [at the White House] with all staff whod (sic) made it happen, knowing we’d helped millions,” he tweeted during a question-and-answer session hosted over Twitter.
When it comes to basketball, one twitter fan asked simply “kobe, MJ, or lebron?”
“Love em all, but as a bulls fan got to go with [Michael Jordan]. In baton rouge, just met lsu freshman ben simmons – will be great,” he tweeted.
On a more serious note, when asked what he is doing to make college more affordable, he cited his work on expanding Pell grants, capping loan repayments at 10 percent of income and making two-years of community college free for most students in good standing.
When it comes to combating climate change, he credited his administration’s new power plant rules that reduce the biggest source of carbon-dioxide and the need to invest in clear energy technology and energy efficiency.
One Twitter user asked the president how he plans on ending “Islamaphobia that us [sic] become so huge in our country, and how can we help?”
Obama encouraged all Americans to speak out against “bias and stereotypes, to protect the freedom of others, and our own as well.”
When asked by one Twitter user how to “sincerely” learn more about the gun debate, Obama referred him to the Twitter account of former Rep. Gabby Giffords, D-Ariz., who is still recovering from being shot in the head five years ago during an event in her Tucson-based district, and her nonprofit, Americans for Responsible Solutions, that lobbies for stricter gun laws. He also cited the Twitter account @Everytown of the Everytown for Gun Safety organization formed to try to stem gun violence.
“Great, we need well-meaning folks from all stripes to get info on how we can respect [the 2nd Amendment] and reduce gun violence,” the president tweeted.
