Obama to Democrats: ‘Sulking and moping is not an option’
Obama: ‘Sulking and moping is not an option’
President Obama said Thursday that Republican lawmakers can’t make him change a law he signed into law, and that it’s not his fault they can’t understand the Constitution.
“I don’t think they understand the federal budget is not a game of musical chairs,” the president said to a group of reporters and editors from the Washington Post, according to a transcript. “You don’t get to just waltz into the game and decide when you’re going to begin and end.”
While many of the Republicans have suggested that the White House is to blame for an ongoing stalemate over the Affordable Care Act, the Obama administration argues that Republicans don’t have the votes to pass it.
The president also said it should be Congress’s job to solve the problem — and not a role he would play if elected president.
The bill is an attempt to give some Americans access to health care that has been denied to them. Republicans have been trying to repeal the law, even though the White House says the current version of the bill would allow insurers to continue to sell the law’s mandate-heavy plans even as they refuse to cover people with pre-existing medical conditions.
But the administration says that the law’s requirement that people buy insurance is a good one, and that the insurers will be free to sell customers policies that don’t cover pre-existing conditions. Still, Republican lawmakers are seeking a compromise that would allow insurers to sell only policies that include coverage for pre-existing conditions.
The Republicans also want to allow insurers to charge much higher premiums for people who buy plans that don’t cover pre-existing conditions or limit coverage to those currently have some type of health condition. And they want to allow patients to be able to switch between plans, which the administration says would raise costs.
However, the law already provides for those moves, and the administration says it is still not certain whether the changes would make insurance markets healthier.
The debate has become increasingly personal as President Barack Obama makes political head in front of the Democrats and the media this week. He’s already been slammed by liberal activists for being a “communist,” and