Obama Admits Health-Care Prices Are Still Increasing

‘Health care prices have grown at their lowest level in five decades’

“As I look back on this year, one thing I see is that so much of our steady, persistent work over the years is paying off for the American people in big, tangible ways. Early actions to rescue the economy set the stage for the longest streak of private sector job growth on record with 13.7 million new jobs in that time. 

The unemployment rate has been cut in half, down to 5 percent. And most importantly, wages grew faster than at any time since the recovery began. So over the course of this year a lot of decisions we made early on have paid off. 

The steady implementation of the Affordable Care Act helped drive the rate of uninsured in America below 10 percent for the first same since the records were kept on that. Health care prices have grown at their lowest level in five decades. 17 million more Americans are getting  coverage and we now know that six million people have signed up through healthcare.gov for coverage beginning on January 1 -- 600,000 on Tuesday alone. 

New customers are up one third over last year and the more who sign up, the stronger the system becomes. That’s good news for every American who no longer has to worry about being just one illness or accident away from financial hardship.”

Video files
Full
Compact
Audio files
Full
Compact