President Obama comes out swinging
On Tuesday, President Obama returned to the White House as a private citizen – his first visit back in over five years. That sentence seems a bit hard to believe as I write it – but it’s not just an indication of not only the former guy’s general disdain for not just President Obama but just about anyone else in living memory who has held the office before him and after. It’s also how just four years ago, the country was headed on a very different and dangerous path than where it’s headed now – with the opposition determined to end the Affordable Care Act one way or another, even with voters in their own party supporting it.
The former president’s visit to the White House was an opportunity to promote a recently proposed policy change by President Biden to the Affordable Care Act. The newly announced rule changes will allow 200,000 more people to become eligible for healthcare enrollment, and reduce the premiums of over one million people who are currently enrolled in an ACA plan – a significant improvement in the lives of many Americans for the better, particularly as inflation is hitting hard.
President Obama’s words were also something to make note of. “Progress feels way too slow sometimes. Victories are often incomplete. And in a country as big and diverse as ours, consensus never comes easy. But what the Affordable Care Act shows is that you are driven by the core idea that together we can improve the lives of this generation and the next,” he said addressing the White House. While this is true of the long endurance of Obamacare – it is also true of any legislation that has a lasting effect on our lives. This is why not only maintaining our majorities is crucial but also growing them. Progress does happen slowly but can quickly be reversed if the wrong people are elected – an important lesson of the Trump administration that should never be forgotten.
James Sullivan is the assistant editor of Brain World Magazine and an advocate of science-based policy making