President Barack Obama will address the Affordable Care Act’s effects on the “health, lives, and pocketbooks” of women on Friday, two days before Mother’s Day, the White House announced. Obama will deliver remarks at from the East Room of the White House at 2:40pm ET.
Three years after he signed it into law, Obama’s chief legislative accomplishment remains unpopular with much of the country, even though most of its individual provisions, such as young adults being able to stay on their parents’ insurance policy until they turn 26, are highly popular. The law also includes many preventive services for women, access to birth control, and expanded screenings and counseling programs.
As the deadline for the creation of state health insurance exchanges approaches in January 2014, the administration is faced with the task of bolstering the law’s image in order to achieve the high level of new exchange entrants it will require to sustain itself into the future. The White House has even directed all cabinet members and senior administration officials to highlight the benefits of Obamacare in any commencement speeches they deliver this year, according to a Bloomberg report published earlier today.
House Republicans, meanwhile, have scheduled yet another vote to repeal the law next week. The attempt would mark three dozen House votes to repeal or dismantle the law since 2011.