Obama, in discussion with Biden, says he 'couldn't be prouder' of ObamaCare
The Biden campaign called the Affordable Care Act one of Obama and Biden's 'greatest accomplishments'
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Former President Barack Obama, in a clip from a discussion with his former Vice President Joe Biden released Thursday morning by Biden's presidential campaign, says that he "couldn't be prouder" of the Affordable Care Act and that "20 million people have health insurance that didn't because of what we did."
The campaign had previously released other segments from the discussion between the former Democratic president and the current presumptive Democratic nominee for president. The entire video will be released later Thursday morning.
"I mean, you and I both know what it's like to have somebody you love get really sick. And in some cases to lose somebody, but that loss is compounded when you see the stress on their faces, because they're worried that they're being a burden on their families," Obama said while talking about his signature health care legislation known as ObamaCare, which Biden has run on and promised to expand, including a public option.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}BIDEN, OBAMA TARGET TRUMP IN SOCIALLY DISTANT SIT-DOWN
Obama added: "They're worried about whether the insurance is gonna cover the treatments that they need. I couldn't be prouder of what we got done, 20 million people have health insurance that didn't have it because of what we did."
Biden, in the clip, also talks about the death of his son and says it made him reflect on the importance of some of the protections in the law.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"I used to sit there and watch him in the bed and in pain and dying of glioblastoma, I thought to myself, what would happen if his insurance company was able to come in, which they could have done before we passed ObamaCare and said, you have outrun your insurance, you've outlived it?" Biden said. "Suffer the last five months in peace, you're on your own... It was so profound an impact on people."
The Trump campaign ripped into Biden over the video.
“Even the former president’s half-hearted, scripted praise can’t cover-up Joe Biden’s nearly 50-year long legacy of failure," said Hogan Gidley, a Trump campaign spokesman. "Biden’s half-century in Washington has been mired in controversy and failed socialist policies that don’t reflect our values, while in just three years, President Trump has provided every day, hard-working Americans with real success and more opportunities to reach their American Dream.”
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The Biden campaign, in a statement on the video, called "passing the Affordable Care Act and expanding health care to more than 23 million Americans" one of Obama and Biden's "greatest accomplishments."
The ACA is currently facing a legal challenge over its constitutionality by a coalition of Republican-leaning states, which is backed by the Trump administration. The Supreme Court will hear the challenge in its upcoming term. The Trump administration has said that whatever the outcome of the challenge, it will ensure that people with preexisting conditions are protected when buying health insurance. But the Biden campaign has nevertheless attacked Trump for ostensibly trying to overturn the law, which provides those protections now.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"I think it’s cruel, it’s heartless, it’s callous,” Biden said of Trump’s attempts to dismantle ObamaCare at a campaign event in June, just hours before the Trump administration filed a brief with the Supreme Court arguing that it should be overturned. "It’s all because in my view he can’t abide the thought of letting stand one of President Obama’s great achievements."
That brief, however, argued that because there is no longer a financial penalty for not having insurance, the individual mandate incorporated in the law can no longer be read as a tax, which saved the law from being struck down in a previous Supreme Court challenge. The Trump administration further said that because of how integral the individual mandate was to the law's design, the rest of it cannot be allowed to stand if the current form is declared unconstitutional.
"The individual mandate cannot be severed from the remainder of the ACA. Congressional findings incorporated into the ACA’s text clearly indicate that Congress would not have adopted the guaranteed-issue and community-rating provisions absent the individual mandate’s requirement to purchase insurance," the June brief said.