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 It was a sign Obama may be slowly turning the corner from one of
the worst crises of his five years in office, emerging bruised and
weakened from the troubled rollout of his signature healthcare law,
even as big challenges remain.
"For decades, Congress has voted to offer relief to job-seekers — including when the unemployment rate was lower than it is today,"
Obama said in his weekly address. "But now that economic lifeline is
in jeopardy." The unemployment benefits expire at year's end.
Attending memorial services in South Africa next week for late South
African President Nelson Mandela and then launching into holiday
season festivities will also allow for a change of subject from the
healthcare controversy.
Obama was buoyed too by news on Friday that the U.S. jobless rate
hit a five-year low of 7.0 percent.
But Republicans say the glitch-prone HealthCare.gov website is only
a manifestation of a deeply flawed healthcare law in which many more
Americans stand to see health insurance plans canceled and to
encounter sticker shock when they sign up for Obamacare.
"So by canceling your insurance, despite a promise to let you keep
your plan, the Obama administration is essentially saying it knows
what's best for you and your family," said Republican Representative
Renee Ellmers of North Carolina in her party's weekly address.
The healthcare law, which was passed in 2010, aims to make
affordable healthcare insurance available to millions of people who
have no coverage.
The Obama administration's next challenge is convincing hundreds of
thousands of Americans needing insurance by January 1 to give the
website a try before December 23. Officials must make sure the site
can support the traffic, and fix problems on the back end where the
website transfers enrollment information to insurance companies.
"The website was always going to get fixed," said Republican
strategist Scott Reed. "But the looming problem are the thousands of
people who have been dropped from their healthcare because of this
government-run solution. That's what's starting to build up out
there as a tidal wave."
"NOT ALL FIXED YET"
While senior White House aides are cautiously optimistic that
improvements to the website are removing many of the glitches, they
know the problems are far from over.
"Things are better because we're making that thing work," said a
senior official. "It's not all fixed yet."
Obama's job approval rating remains low, taking a hit from the
healthcare woes and the earlier budget battle with congressional
Republicans that led to a government shutdown and a close brush with
a debt default.
The latest Reuters/Ipsos poll put Obama's approval rating at 38
percent, against 55 percent who disapprove, among the lowest
rankings of his presidency.
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Ipsos pollster Julia Clark said a recent White House foreign policy
achievement, an interim deal aimed at containing Iran's nuclear
program, was not registering in the polls.
"It's not a great approval number and things like Iran don't
resonate enough for the American people to fuel a recovery," she
said.
In a sign he wants to show his agenda has not been stalled by
healthcare, Obama has taken on a new tone. After frequent apologies
for the website's woes, he no longer dwells on them in his public
remarks, giving them only a brief mention before emphasizing the
broader benefits of the law.
He cites the numbers of Americans being helped by gaining access to
free mammograms or saving on prescription drugs.
"It is these numbers — not the ones in any poll — that will
ultimately determine the fate of this law," he said in a speech on
Wednesday that focused on income inequality and other items on his
economic agenda.
Democratic lawmakers, who have often felt slighted by the Obama
White House, credit his team with extensive outreach over the
healthcare law, but there are lingering strains.
Many Democrats remain frustrated the administration was not more
prepared when the website rolled out on October 1 and they worry
about the "back-end" problems with the site.
Representative Carol Shea-Porter, a New Hampshire Democrat, voiced
her concerns at a Tuesday meeting on Capitol Hill where Obama
administration officials updated lawmakers on the healthcare
developments.
"They do understand that time is running out and people want to know
exactly what it's going to look like on January 1. I know that
they're speaking in good faith and that they're working very hard on
it."
Representative Jim McGovern, a Massachusetts Democrat, said he
believed Obama's job approval rating would rise once the
HealthCare.gov site improves.
Democrats need that to happen to improve their prospects in
congressional elections next November, when they will be seeking to
keep control of the Senate and regain a majority in the House of
Representatives.
"We've had a rough couple of weeks with the bad rollout of the
Affordable Care Act," said McGovern. "But I think things are
changing on that."
(Additional reporting by Roberta Rampton, Caren Bohan and Jeff
Mason; editing by Peter Cooney)
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