Former President Barack Obama warned Thursday that “progress” towards universal health care made during his presidency was in peril as Republicans try to repeal his signature domestic achievement.
Obama told a huge crowd in Berlin at a joint appearance with German Chancellor Angela Merkel that the US was “unique” among advanced nations in not having health care coverage for everyone.
“My hope was that I was able to get 100% of people health care while I was president. We didn’t quite achieve that, but we were able to get 20 million people health care who didn’t have health care,” he said.
“Certainly, I have some regrets,” he said, adding that he had hoped to do more.
“Obviously some of the progress that we made is now in peril … but the point really is for those 20 million people, their lives have been better,” Obama said. “We have set a standard that people can build on.”
Obama was appearing at the biennial congress of the German Protestant Church.
Thousands of people crowded in front of the Brandenburg Gate and down the green space known as the Tiergarten to see Obama and Merkel in a scene reminiscent of his 2008 campaign speech that he delivered at the Victory Column monument nearby.