Obama goes on ‘offensive’
GLENDALE, Calif, Nov 27, (Agencies): Almost two weeks ago, President Barack Obama, looking down, walked into the White House briefing room and apologized for the flawed rollout of his healthcare reform law.
That picture of a chastened leader now appears to be gone.
During a three-day Western swing through Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles, Obama touted the accomplishments of his signature law, popularly known as Obamacare, and promised the glitches were going away.
Although he occasionally referred pejoratively to the “darn” website, HealthCare.gov, he made a point of shifting his message to the positive benefits his law had achieved and piling on Republicans for rooting for its failure.
“Yes, we decided to fix a broken healthcare system,” Obama told workers at DreamWorks Animation on Tuesday, the final day of his trip.
“I was talking to some of the studio execs here and I said, ‘You know the rollout of the healthcare marketplace was rough’ ... and yet here in California and here across this state, there are thousands of people who are getting healthcare for the first time — for the first time — because of this.”
The administration has promised the website will be working for the vast majority of Americans by the end of this month, and White House officials continue to express confidence that goal will be achieved.
“The website is continually working better, so check it out,” Obama said to laughter from the crowd.
Control
Democrats are suffering in the polls because of the shaky rollout just as they are trying to keep control of the US Senate and recapture the House of Representatives from Republicans in the 2014 elections.
Obama, who has said he feels personally responsible that the law has made things difficult for his fellow Democrats, adopted a more assertive tone when discussing it with donors and supporters — signaling he hoped his fellow party members would follow suit.
“We’re going to continue to implement the healthcare law. The product is good, people want it and we should not live in a country where people are going bankrupt just because they get sick,” he said.
“And anybody who is going to keep on pushing against that, they will meet my resistance because I am willing to fix any problems that there are, but I am not going to abandon people to make sure that they have got health insurance in this country.”
The DreamWorks Animation studio is famous for the “Shrek” animated films and is led by one of Obama’s top political donors, Jeffrey Katzenberg.
The White House said DreamWorks was not chosen because of Katzenberg’s financial support.
Obama also met with a who’s who of film industry leaders, including the chief executives of Lionsgate Entertainment , Twentieth Century Fox Film, The Walt Disney Co and Warner Brothers.
Obama highlighted the entertainment industry as a “bright spot” in the growing US economy. During their meeting, the group also discussed piracy and intellectual property rights, a White House spokesman said.
After arriving, Obama toured parts of the studio, including a visit with actors Steve Martin and Jim Parsons, who are voicing lead characters in an upcoming alien film called “Home.”
Obama referred to Martin having played banjo at the White House.
“The fact that I played banjo at the White House for the president of the United States was the biggest thrill of his life,” Martin quipped.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to referee another dispute over President Barack Obama’s trouble-plagued health care law, whether businesses can use religious objections to escape a requirement to cover birth control for employees.
Insurance
The justices said they will take up an issue that has divided the lower courts in the face of roughly 40 lawsuits from for-profit companies asking to be spared from having to cover some or all forms of contraception.
Obama’s health care law has had a rocky start, with computer glitches causing difficulties for Americans who want to sign up for medical insurance using one of the sites run by the federal government.
There has also been a political cost with opposition Republicans, who would like to repeal the law, hoping they can use it to hammer away at Democrats in next year’s congressional elections and Obama’s Democratic allies pressing him to get the program functioning smoothly so they can confront Republicans on other issues.
The court will consider two cases. One involves Hobby Lobby Inc., an arts and crafts chain with 13,000 full-time employees. Hobby Lobby won in the lower courts.
The other case is an appeal from Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp, a company that employs 950 people in making wood cabinets. Lower courts rejected the company’s claims.
The court said the cases will be combined for arguments, probably in late March. A decision should come by late June.
The cases center on a provision of the health care law that requires most employers that offer health insurance to their workers to provide a range of preventive health benefits, including contraception.
In both instances, the Christian families that own the companies say that insuring some forms of contraception violates their religious beliefs.
The key issue is whether profit-making corporations can assert religious beliefs under the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act or the First Amendment provision guaranteeing Americans the right to believe and worship as they choose. Nearly four years ago, the justices expanded the concept of corporate “personhood,” saying in the Citizens United case that corporations have the right to participate in the political process the same way that individuals do.
Hobby Lobby calls itself a “biblically founded business” and is closed on Sundays. Founded in 1972, the company now operates more than 500 stores in 41 states. The Green family, Hobby Lobby’s owners, also owns the Mardel Christian bookstore chain.