In his remarks, Mr. Obama was more animated and more specific than he
usually is in discussing the law, which was passed without any
Republican votes.
“No one can be turned away from private insurance plans,” he said. “If
you’re sick, you’ll finally have the same chance to buy quality,
affordable health care as everybody else.”
The president made the moral case for universal health insurance
coverage, an argument that he has often neglected in the past.
“The United States of America does not sentence its people to suffering
just because they don’t make enough to buy insurance on the private
market, just because their work doesn’t provide health insurance, just
because they fall sick or suffer an accident,” Mr. Obama said. “That
could happen to anybody. And regular access to a doctor or medicine or
preventive care — that’s not some earned privilege; it is a right.”
He wound up his speech with a promise: “We’re going to keep fighting
with everything we’ve got to secure that right, to make sure that every
American gets the care that they need when they need it at a price that
they can afford.”
The president’s pitch came as the Obama administration confirmed that
Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, had tried
to raise money from the private sector to pay for a huge “outreach and
education” campaign publicizing potential benefits of the law. Congress
has refused to provide as much money as Mr. Obama requested for the
purpose.
Jason Young, a spokesman for Ms. Sebelius, said she had made
fund-raising calls to advocates for patients, health care providers,
churches and other outside groups. In addition, he said, she has called
insurance company executives and endorsed the work of Enroll America, a private nonprofit group trying to secure coverage for the uninsured.
Insurers are extensively regulated by the federal government, but Mr.
Young said Ms. Sebelius had not violated federal rules because she did
not explicitly ask insurance executives to donate money. In addition, he
said, her activities were authorized by the Public Health Service Act.
Still, Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, the senior Republican on the
Finance Committee, said he would investigate the efforts of Ms. Sebelius
to determine if they violated any law or put undue pressure on health
care executives.
The United States Office of Special Counsel, an independent federal
investigative agency, said last year that Ms. Sebelius had engaged in “prohibited political activity” when she made “extemporaneous political remarks” during an official trip to North Carolina in February 2012.
Mr. Obama’s remarks on Friday followed weeks of criticism by Democrats
in Congress, who had said that he needed to do a better job of defending
and explaining the law.
He said Republicans were “telling tall tales” about the law.
“Some small businesses are being told their costs are going to go up,
even though they’re exempted from the law or they actually stand to
benefit from it,” Mr. Obama said. “Whenever insurance premiums go up,
you’re being told it’s because of Obamacare, even though there’s no
evidence that that’s the case.”
To Americans bewildered by the law, he said, “Don’t be bamboozled.”
Starting in October, individuals, families and small-business owners in
every state will be able to shop for private insurance in online markets
known as insurance exchanges. Coverage begins in January 2014, when
most Americans will be required to have insurance. Administration
officials said they expected seven million people to gain coverage
through the exchanges in 2014, with the number growing to 29 million by
the fifth year.
The officials said they were focusing, in particular, on 2.7 million
healthy uninsured people age 18 to 35, whose premiums could help pay for
the care of less healthy subscribers. More than 95 percent of people in
this uninsured cohort do not have chronic conditions, the officials
said, and one-third of them live in just three states: California,
Florida and Texas.
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