President Barack Obama he expected some âglitches and bumpsâ in the road to full implementation of his health care law.
âThatâs pretty much true of every government program thatâs ever been set up,â Obama said. âWeâve got a great team in place, we are pushing very hard to make sure that weâre hitting all the deadlines and the benchmarks.â
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During the White House news conference, Obama also said the law is âpretty much already in placeâ for 85 percent to 90 percent of Americans who have health insurance. For those people, the law has made it possible for many adult children up to age 26 to stay on a parentâs health insurance plan and improved coverage of preventive health care services, he said.
âFor the average American out there ⊠who already [has] health insurance, this thingâs already happened,â Obama said.  âTheir insurance is stronger, better, more secure than it was before. Full stop. Thatâs it. They donât have to worry about anything else.â
For the approximately 10 percent to 15 percent  of Americans who either do not have health insurance or purchase their coverage on the individual market â about 30 million people, the law creates , or online marketplaces, where, beginning in October, eligible individuals and small businesses will be able to purchase coverage, with some qualifying for federal subsidies.
If states do not set up an exchange, the federal market will do it for them. and the District of Columbia have decided to set up their own exchanges. Another seven states are partnering with the federal government to set up the marketplaces, and 26 have defaulted to the federal government to do all the work.
Earlier this month, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., who was one of the lawâs key architects, said he anticipated a ââ coming as the health lawâs exchanges become operational, citing concerns from small businesses in Montana about how the law would work.
âThe administrationâs public information campaign on the benefits of the Affordable Care Act deserves a failing grade. You need to fix this,â he told Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius during a hearing where he criticized the administrationâs efforts. Other Democrats also have been  of the lawâs implementation so far, as have many Republicans.
Establishing the exchanges âis still a big complicated piece of business,â Obama said at the press conference, adding that political opposition from many Republicans makes the process even more difficult.
âWhen youâre doing it nationwide, relatively fast, and youâve got half of Congress who is determined to try to block implementation and not adequately funding implementation, and youâve got a number of Republican governors who know that itâs bad politics for them to try to implement this effectively ⊠when you have that kind of situation, that makes it harder,â he said.
A new Kaiser Family Foundation tracking  suggests that the Obama administration has a lot of work to do to make Americans aware of the health law and how it will work. Four in 10 Americans donât know the law is still in place, and about half of the public says they do not have enough information about the law to understand how it will affect their family. (KHN is an editorially independent program of the foundation.)