President Barack Obama has been doing an awful lot of talking about his signature domestic policy — facing it’s second high-profile Supreme Court test — lately.
His latest defense of the Affordable Care Act came in an interview that will air on “Extra” on Thursday night.
“One of the things I always try to remind people of what we do here, what the Supreme Court does, what Congress does, these are the things that really matter in people’s lives,” the President told Extra’s Jerry Penacoli.
According to Penacoli, the President’s health care act helped him affordably get the treatment he needed when he was diagnosed with melanoma and thyroid cancer. This was an opportunity for the President to make a hard sell of his health care law, just weeks before the Supreme Court decision that will decide the fate of the measure.
“Despite all the politics and noise around it, what’s happened now is millions have health insurance who didn’t have it before,” the President said. “People who did have health insurance before like you, Jerry, are much more secure in the insurance that they’ve got, it’s costing less than anybody expected, it’s working well.”
Last weekend in a press conference at the G7 summit, Obama said the case “probably shouldn’t even have be taken up.” But he also said he was optimistic that the Supreme Court would “play it straight.”
While many took this as advisement to Supreme Court, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said during the daily briefing the President was not trying to communicate with the justices.
The President has acknowledged on a number of occasions that the decision in the King v. Burwell case will be “made by a separate but equal branch of government,” Earnest said.
The case will decide whether federal health insurance subsidies are legal — and could potentially effect more than 6 million people.
During the interview, the President also talked about his daughters, the NBA and his final year in office — including answering what the first thing his family would do when they left the White House.
“I think it’s fair to say that it won’t be up to me, it will be up to Michelle,” Obama said.