"This Republican shutdown did not have to happen. But I want every American to understand why it did happen. Republicans in the House of Representatives refused to fund the government unless we defunded or dismantled the Affordable Care Act. They've shut down the government over an ideological crusade to deny affordable health insurance to millions of Americans. In other words, they demanded ransom just for doing their job. …
"And of course, what’s stranger still is that shutting down our government doesn't accomplish their stated goal. The Affordable Care Act is a law that passed the House; it passed the Senate. The Supreme Court ruled it constitutional. It was a central issue in last year's election. It is settled, and it is here to stay. And because of its funding sources, it's not impacted by a government shutdown. …
"It’s been a long time coming, but today, Americans who have been forced to go without insurance can now visit healthcare.gov and enroll in affordable new plans that offer quality coverage. …
"And people will have six months to sign up. So over the next six months, people are going to have the opportunity--in many cases, for the first time in their lives--to get affordable coverage that they desperately need.
"Now, of course, if you're one of the 85 percent of Americans who already have health insurance, you don’t need to do a thing. You're already benefiting from new benefits and protections that have been in place for some time under this law. But for the 15 percent of Americans who don't have health insurance, this opportunity is life-changing. …
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| White House speech, October 1, 2013 |
"Just visit healthcare.gov, and there you can compare insurance plans, side by side, the same way you'd shop for a plane ticket on Kayak or a TV on Amazon. You enter some basic information, you’ll be presented with a list of quality, affordable plans that are available in your area, with clear descriptions of what each plan covers, and what it will cost. You'll find more choices, more competition, and in many cases, lower prices--most uninsured Americans will find that they can get covered for $100 or less.
"And there's a hotline where you can apply over the phone and get help with the application, or just get questions that you have answered by real people, in 150 different languages. … The number is 1-800-318-2596. …
"And let me just remind people why I think this is so important. I heard a striking statistic yesterday--if you get cancer, you are 70 percent more likely to live another five years if you have insurance than if you don't. Think about that. That is what it means to have health insurance.
"Set aside the issues of security and finances and how you're impacted by that, the stress involved in not knowing whether or not you're going to have health care. This is life-or-death stuff. Tens of thousands of Americans die each year just because they don't have health insurance. Millions more live with the fear that they'll go broke if they get sick. And today, we begin to free millions of our fellow Americans from that fear. …
"Remember most Republicans have made a whole bunch of predictions about this law that haven’t come true. There are no 'death panels.' Costs haven't skyrocketed; they're growing at the slowest rate in 50 years. The last three years since I signed the Affordable Care Act into law are the three slowest rates of health spending growth on record. And contrary to Republican claims, this law hasn't 'destroyed' our economy. Over the past three and a half years, our businesses have created 7.5 million new jobs. Just today, we learned that our manufacturers are growing at the fastest rate in two and a half years. They have factored in the Affordable Care Act. They don't think it's a problem. What's weighing on the economy is not the Affordable Care Act, but the constant series of crises and the unwillingness to pass a reasonable budget by a faction of the Republican Party.
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| Signing Affordable Care Act in March 2010 |
"Now, like every new law, every new product rollout, there are going to be some glitches in the signup process along the way that we will fix. I've been saying this from the start. For example, we found out that there have been times this morning where the site has been running more slowly than it normally will. The reason is because more than one million people visited healthcare.gov before 7:00 in the morning.
"To put that in context, there were five times more users in the marketplace this morning than have ever been on Medicare.gov at one time. That gives you a sense of how important this is to millions of Americans around the country, and that's a good thing. And we're going to be speeding things up in the next few hours to handle all this demand that exceeds anything that we had expected.
"Consider that just a couple of weeks ago, Apple rolled out a new mobile operating system. And within days, they found a glitch, so they fixed it. I don't remember anybody suggesting Apple should stop selling iPhones or iPads--or threatening to shut down the company if they didn't. That's not how we do things in America. We don't actively root for failure. We get to work, we make things happen, we make them better, we keep going.
"So in that context, I'll work with anybody who's got a serious idea to make the Affordable Care Act work better. I've said that repeatedly. But as long as I am President, I will not give in to reckless demands by some in the Republican Party to deny affordable health insurance to millions of hardworking Americans. …
"Now, let me make one closing point: This Republican shutdown threatens our economy at a time when millions of Americans are still looking for work, and businesses are starting to get some traction. So the timing is not good. Of course, a lot of the Republicans in the House ran for office two years ago promising to shut down the government, and so, apparently, they've now gotten their wish. But as I've said before, the irony that the House Republicans have to contend with is they've shut down a whole bunch of parts of the government, but the Affordable Care Act is still open for business.
"And this may be why you've got many Republican governors and senators and even a growing number of reasonable Republican congressmen who are telling the extreme right of their party to knock it off, pass a budget, move on.
And I want to underscore the fact that Congress doesn't just have to end this shutdown and reopen the government--Congress generally has to stop governing by crisis. They have to break this habit. It is a drag on the economy. It is not worthy of this country."
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