At a speech in Miami, President Barack Obama said a public option, increasing the number of states with Medicaid expansion and upping enrollee tax credits could aid the ACA, ABC News reports.
The president spoke at Miami Dade College's Wolfson Campus for 50 minutes Thursday, addressing the ACA's achievements and posing solutions for the health law's "growing pains."
Below are five takeaways from President Obama's speech.
1. The president said ACA achievements include the more than 20 million previously uninsured Americans that now have health coverage, the uninsured rate's record 8.6 percent low and the elimination of preexisting conditions, Miami Herald reports.
2. President Obama said challenges persist with covering the approximately 27.3 million remaining uninsured. He proposed expanding Medicaid in the 19 states where it is not expanded, lowering prescription drug costs and increasing ACA enrollee tax credits to reach the untapped uninsured. In terms of uncompetitive health insurance markets, President Obama proposed creating a "public fallback plan," or a public option to be offered with commercial insurance in limited competition markets.
3. While President Obama argued employers — not the ACA — are responsible for narrowing physician networks and increasing copays, he acknowledged rising premiums and fewer plans offered on ACA exchanges challenge those who do not qualify for subsidies. The president said his successor could expand the threshold of subsidy eligibility to more middle-class enrollees, The Washington Post reports.
4. President Obama said it is not "the time to move backwards on healthcare reform and that "problems that may have arisen from the Affordable Care Act [are] not because government is too involved in the process. The problem is we have not reached everybody and pulled them in."
5. Halfway through the speech, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said in a statement, "Obamacare is collapsing. Insurance companies are abandoning the program, leaving stranded families to face higher premiums and fewer choices," The Wall Street Journal reports.
In addition, U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) issued a statement following the speech saying premium hikes were a result of the ACA. He said, "That's why we've seen record premium hikes. That's why millions of people — including millennials — have lost their plans, or been forced to buy plans they don't like. That's why we've seen waste, fraud and abuse. And at this point, one thing is clear: This law can't be fixed," reports The Washington Post.
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