WASHINGTON — Former President Barack Obama returned to the White House on Tuesday for the first time since leaving office to celebrate the 12th anniversary of his landmark health care law, which President Joe Biden bolstered with two new actions.
Biden, who as Obama’s vice president famously celebrated the Affordable Care Act’s passage as a “big f---ing deal,” signed an executive order to make health care more accessible and affordable, according to a senior administration official.
Meanwhile, the Treasury Department will introduce a regulation designed to reduce premiums required to cover spouses and dependents on employer-based plans, closing a loophole in the law.
If the rule is finalized, about 5 million families who are paying more than 10% of their income for employer-based health care or who are unable to afford quality coverage would be eligible for subsidies to reduce those costs.
“The bottom line is this, the Affordable Care Act is stronger now than it’s ever been,” said Biden, standing next to Obama and Vice President Kamala Harris in the East Room of the White House. “Today we’re strengthening it even further.”
Obama said the ACA remains his proudest moment from his eight-year presidency because it established the principle of universal health care. He added that it was a product of compromise and will require improvements over time.
“Throughout history, what you see is, it’s important to get something started, to plant a flag, to lay a foundation for further progress,” Obama said.
The executive order Biden signed will direct federal agencies to take steps to improve access to health care plans. The administration believes such actions will make it easier for consumers to obtain and retain coverage.
Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said the Affordable Care Act’s anniversary was the perfect time for Obama to return to the White House and that he and Biden would take stock of how the law has expanded access to health care over the last 12 years. Obama left office in January 2017, last departing the White House residence along with then-President-elect Donald Trump and their wives en route to the Capitol, where he lifted off in Marine One just before his successor’s inauguration.
Obama campaigned for Biden and other Democrats in 2020. But with the exception of the release of the first volume of his memoir last year, he has kept a relatively low profile since his former vice president took office in January 2021.
With Biden’s broader domestic agenda stalled and November’s midterm elections looming on the horizon, the summoning of Obama — and the White House’s emphasis on an existing law — underscored the degree to which Democrats are working to remind voters, many frustrated by rising costs and the pandemic’s persistence, about what they have already accomplished.
Biden, Psaki said, planned to underscore the efforts his administration has taken in its first 14 months to increase access to health care.
He highlighted how a measure in last year’s American Rescue Plan enabled 14.5 million Americans to sign up for coverage. Additionally, enhanced subsidies included in the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package ensured 9 million Americans were able to lower their monthly premiums by at least $50 per person, according to the White House.
Biden and the former president also planned to have lunch, as they did on a weekly basis during Obama’s presidency.
“They continue to talk regularly,” Psaki said. “They are real friends, not just Washington friends, and so I’m sure they will talk about events in the world as well as their families and personal lives.”
