ACA News Conference (As Prepared)
June 28, 2012
Good morning, thanks for coming.
This is a great day for the people of Washington!
The United States Supreme Court opinion that upholds the Affordable Care Act is only hours old and already being spun by the critics in the other Washington.
But for me, today is the day to celebrate! Today is about real Americans and real Washingtonians. And today real people all across this state and nation are the winners.
Today our economy won...Today every parent who can�t afford to take their kid to the doctor won. Every person with a pre-existing medical condition won.
Every person who got a letter in the mail saying their insurance is revoked won. Every young person who gets to stay on their parents� health plan won.
The real winners are the millions of Americans, including Washingtonians, who have already benefited from Obamacare, and who will benefit in the years to come.
Among them are over 50,000 young adults in our state who have gained insurance coverage through their parents� plan...
...Our more than 60,000 seniors who will continue to save $600 a year on their prescription drugs...
...And the millions of Washingtonians no longer subject to unfair practices by insurance companies.
We talk about the great things this law does for the uninsured. But don�t forget what it does to improve the coverage and lives of those already with insurance! It�s significant!
Insurance companies no longer have the power to cancel your policy, deny you coverage, or charge women more than men.
Preventive care will still be covered free of charge by insurance companies, including mammograms for women and wellness visits by seniors.
(And I�m living proof that preventive care works. I may not have been standing here today if a mammogram hadn�t caught my breast cancer early so I could deal with it.)
By August, millions of Americans will receive a rebate because their insurance company spent too much of their premium on administrative costs or CEO bonuses. In our state, 8,000 people will receive an average rebate of $185.
And with the upholding of this historic law, I look forward to the day not long from now when more than 800,000 people in our state will be able to use our Health Benefit Exchange to get the health insurance that they need but currently must go without.
Since President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act in 2010, we have led the nation to implement it in our state.
...For example, the design and development of our Health Benefit Exchange, which will provide a competitive marketplace for consumers to compare and shop for insurance coverage, will continue under a recently awarded $128 million federal grant.
...Quality improvement and cost containment initiatives such as our proposal to better coordinate care for people enrolled in both Medicaid and Medicare will also move forward, as will enhancements to our public health system.
And of course, two other major elements of the law will remain in place. Children cannot be denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions, a feature that will be extended to all Americans in 2014. And young people can remain on their parents� insurance plans until they�re 26.
We firmly believed the law was constitutional and would ultimately withstand legal challenge. I�m extremely pleased that the majority of the Court agreed on the merits of the law highlighted in the briefs that I and others submitted on its behalf.
This is a historic decision that will allow Washington to continue as a leader in providing access to quality, affordable health care to its residents.
We still have our work cut out for us. But we in Washington are leaders in health care reform, and have been for two decades. We are cutting costs and improving quality through evidence-based medicine.
We know how to do reform, and believe me, other states have been watching and grabbing our ideas for years. Now we have the tools we need to vault to the next level � tools we�ve been waiting on for 20 years.
We have been implementing the Act carefully and successfully, and we will continue to do so. We can�t afford not to!
The money this country spends on health care is approaching 20 percent of GDP. It is one of the biggest challenges to our global competitiveness.
Think about that for a minute. Our costs are already almost twice that of other developed countries.
Washington is the most trade dependent state in the nation, and we can�t compete with other countries if one in five dollars goes for health care.
If any other cost was cornering nearly a quarter of our GDP we�d have seen it as a crisis and would have confronted it decades ago. Now we have!
Our state government health care costs alone have doubled over a decade, to $5 billion a year. Health care, as a share of the state general fund, has grown from 22 percent in 2000 to more than 30 percent now.
That�s money that should be going to education preparing our kids for an incredibly competitive world economy.
The Affordable Care Act is the way forward...The way to solve our health care crisis for this generation and the generations to come.
...The way to provide affordable, quality health care for all Washingtonians.
I thank and congratulate the President and all those responsible for their foresight and perseverance in getting us to this day.
