Posted on 12/20/2013 2:27:40 PM PST by Kaslin
Speaking from the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House today, President Obama delivered some brief remarks at his final press conference of the year before departing for the Hawaiian Islands for a two week vacation. Given the sorry state of his signature domestic achievement, Guy wonders why the president is leaving at all considering millions of Americans are fretting about the status of their health insurance. Will they be covered after the New Year? Some, of course, will not be. And by the time he returns from the beaches of Hawaii, it will be too late to enroll them. Fleeing the capital now might be a decision he later comes to regret.
In any case, after his initial remarks discussing the economy and next year’s budget, the president spent his end-of-the-year presser mostly defending his signature health care law and the controversial NSA program, which he promises to evaluate more fully after the New Year.
“The healthcare website problems were a source of great frustration,” he conceded. “On the other hand, since that time I now have a couple million people who are going to have health care on January 1. And that is a big deal. That is why I ran for that office.”
The president did his best to defend the much-pilloried federal overhaul. However, he did not mention anything about the millions of Americans who’ve lost their health care plans -- or might lose their health care plans -- in the New Year. He did add, however, that more than one million citizens signed up for health insurance on the exchanges over the past three weeks.
Meanwhile, he also addressed the public’s growing concerns about the controversial NSA surveillance programs.
“As you know the independent panel came back with a series of recommendations,” he said. “What we’re doing now is evaluating all the recommendation that have been made. Over the next several weeks we’re going to assess…how we might apply and incorporate their recommendations. And I’m going to make a pretty definite statement about this in January.”
He said he did not think that the NSA was “snooping” on Americans, but conceded that he understands the public is concerned about the program, and that more transparency on behalf of the government is to be expected.
Most significantly, perhaps, the president emphasized time and again that the economy is the strongest it’s been since he took office -- deflecting criticism from the Affordable Care Act -- and dodged whether or not 2013 was the worst year of his presidency.
“A lot of our legislative initiatives in Congress had not moved forward as rapidly as I’d like, which means I’m going to keep at it,” he said.
We'll see how that goes in the New Year.
Next year should be amusing.
Only if we start out with a Billion having healthcare.
His press conference was laced with the usual abundance of self-referential comments. Every other sentence was I, me or my.
“iPres” is a good tag for this self-obsessed narcissist.
Doubling down on stupid.
What a pr**k.
“What an arrogant, self-obsessed preener. It’s all about him, all the time.”
The night has a thousand “I”’s.
You would THINK that some mature, reasonably intelligent person (if any) in the DNC/WH would “fix” this glaring and continually annoying peculiarity of Obama’s.
“Only if we start out with a Billion having healthcare”
It’s like the old joke, “How do you become a millionaire in the stock market?”: Answer: Start out a multimillionaire.
Word on the street is that hes trying to have the forthcoming Christian HOLIDAY..renamed OBAMAMASS!
The only way to fix it is to stuff a sock in his mouth.
13 million got letters saying their health care was cancelled, and he has 1 million with insurance and the stupid MoFo calls that a success.
He admits math is hard.
Illustrative that he uses the possessive. Like a king. Wow.
Three years to go on cruise control, Hawaii, Nantucket, golf, it’s a great life.
Many millions more have LOST their insurance while millions have seen their rates skyrocket. 10’s of millions of people have lost their jobs or had their hours cut to 29/hrs.
All of us except the appointed ones in congress and their special friends will lose our insurance.
Obama would burn down your house on Christmas Eve and brag about how he kept you warm.
Yes it's exactly like that.
Canada’s courts finally had a ruling that access to a waiting list for health care is NOT health care, so private care for those waiting was not immoral or illegal.
A health insurance policy you cannot afford is not health care.
And the interesting court cases will come from people who have signed up for insurance but not paid for it, used the insurance policy and thus never pay for the insurance. Do they get out of the fine AND the financial cost of care?
And if you sign up for health insurance and then cannot afford the premiums, can the IRS come after you for the premiums you didn’t pay? Or the deductibles you didn’t?
You are right and the corrupt news media would parrot him.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.