Monday's deadline for online enrolment saw a surge of consumers applying for health coverage on the federal website Healthcare.gov.
The Obama administration had set an enrolment goal of seven million people, but reaching that number appeared in doubt following the troubled launch of Healthcare.gov in October.
The president praised the achievement in light of the lost weeks at the start of the enrolment period.
He said: "As messy as it's been sometimes, as contentious as it's been sometimes, it's progress."
"Millions of Americans finally had the same chance to buy quality, affordable health care and the peace of mind that comes with it," he added.
Americans wait in line to get online enrolment assistance in Florida The White House has not provided a demographic breakdown of the enrolment numbers and it was not immediately clear how many of the enrollees actually paid their premiums.
Also unknown is how many were previously uninsured, which is seen as the real marker to determine the success of Mr Obama's health care overhaul.
Although March 31 was the official sign-up deadline, millions of people are potentially still eligible for extensions granted by the administration.
Among those are people who were unable to complete the enrolment process for various reasons, including glitches to the federal website.
As the deadline approached on Monday, critics of the president's health care reforms continued to express opposition.
Republican House Speaker John Boehner's spokesman Michael Steel argued that the law was harming Americans.
He said: "Every promise the president made has been broken: Health care costs are rising, not falling.
"Americans are losing the doctors and plans that they like - especially seniors suffering under President Obama's Medicare cuts.
"Small businesses are afraid to hire new workers, hobbling our economic growth. That's why we must replace this fundamentally-flawed law with patient-centred solutions that will actually lower health care costs and help create jobs."
Mr Obama fired back at critics as he touted the enrolment figures from the White House Rose Garden on Tuesday.
He said: "The debate over repealing this law is over. The Affordable Care Act here to stay."
(function(d){ var js, ref = d.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; js = d.createElement('script'); js.id = 'outbrainjs'; js.async = true; js.src = "//widgets.outbrain.com/outbrain.js"; ref.parentNode.insertBefore(js, ref); }(document));
No comments:
Post a Comment