Obama: Thanks to ObamaCare, ‘We Essentially Save over $100 Billion’ on Health Care

“But what we are going to have to tackle, long-term is health care spending. And if we don’t do that, then we can cut food stamps, and we can cut WIC programs, and we can cut education programs, and you can cut out Head Start — you can cut out every single discretionary program that Democrats support and a lot of governors, Republican governors support but sometimes members of Congress say our [indecipherable] or big government or whatever, you can get rid all of that discretionary spending it won’t matter. Because, the big-ticket item is Medicare or Medicaid, and in the private sector, the big ticket item that’s where the inflation is as on the health care side. 

So — so my hope is, is that we get into a serious conversation. Maybe it will have to happen once I’m gone because the Affordable Care Act and the debate around health care has gotten so politicized, so toxic that we can’t have a sensible conversation about it, despite the fact that I implemented a measure that was passed by a Republican government, but that’s a whole another question. And we’ve embraced cost-saving measures that used to be championed by Republicans and then suddenly now, this is some Obama scheme or plot. 

But maybe once I’m gone, we can go back to have a sensible conversation between Democrats and Republicans about how we should incentivize greater efficiency, better outcomes, higher quality for lower-cost in our health care system. And if we do that, that is going to make the biggest difference. The single biggest thing that we were able to do to bring down any additions to the debt, since I’ve been in office, was over the last 3-4 years we’ve kept health care inflation at its lowest rate in 40 years, since the Affordable Care Act passed. And because of that, the Madicare trust fund — we essentially save well over $100 billion. I think it was about $160 billion and counting just by making health care more efficient. And by the way, people got just as good or better care. This was not done through rationing, it wouldn’t done through us cutting people out of the program, it just had to do with better delivery.

That’s part of the reason by the way, why I think that Medicaid expansion where it has been implemented, is smart. It is going to prevent you from having bigger problems down the road that your states are going to have to pay for. I don’t expect to any of you to agree with me right now, but if you just look at where it’s been implement effectively, it’s going to save you money over the long term. It has been done really well in Kentucky, but that’s a whole another question.”