06-20-2025  10:06 pm   •   PDX and SEA Weather

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NORTHWEST NEWS

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OPINION

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AFRICAN AMERICANS IN THE NEWS

ENTERTAINMENT

U.S. & WORLD NEWS

By Kevin Liptak CNN

The Affordable Care Act, enacted in 2010 but still the focus of intense Republican scorn, will get a boost from its champion President Barack Obama on Friday at an event singling out the law's benefits for women.
In Oregon? Find out how Obamacare will affect you here.
His remarks, to be delivered at the White House, will be made alongside women and families the White House says are already benefiting from the measure, which has become known as Obamacare. The event is pegged to Mother's Day.

Economist Jared Bernstein says Obamacare will create jobs.

"Mothers are the Number One validator for the young and uninsured and will be critical in the effort to encourage their kids to enroll for insurance in the fall," a White House official said. "The audience for the event is comprised of representatives from women's organizations that will help amplify the benefits of the ACA for women and help us communicate with millions of women the benefits that are now available to them and their families."

Those benefits include better access to mammograms and birth control, as well as new measures allowing children to remain on their parents' health insurance up to age 26, the White House said.

The health care law, considered one of Obama's most substantial first-term achievements, has long been challenged by Republicans as unconstitutional and bad for small businesses.

The Supreme Court heard challenges to the law last year and upheld it by a 5-4 vote, deeming its key individual mandate, which requires most Americans to obtain health insurance or face a tax penalty, constitutional.

That decision also paved the way for the law to take effect next year.

Yet, Republicans have vowed to continue fighting the law. The House will hold its 37th vote to repeal Obamacare next week, though its demise is unlikely with a Democrat-controlled Senate and White House.

"We've got 70 new members that have not had the opportunity to vote on the president's health care law. Frankly, they've been asking for an opportunity to vote on it and we're going to give it to them,"

House Speaker John Boehner said at his weekly press conference on Thursday. "I want to repeal the law of the land."

Some GOP governors have also opposed the law's expansion of Medicaid, refusing federal dollars to implement the expansion in their states.

But Republicans aren't the only ones who have problems with Obamacare - Sen. Max Baucus, a key Democrat who helped craft the law, voiced serious concerns in April about its rollout.

"The administration's public information campaign on the benefits of the Affordable Care Act deserves a failing grade. You need to fix this," Baucus told Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius at a hearing last month.

"I just see a huge train wreck coming down," he added later.

The administration has been open to making the law easier to implement, including shortening applications for health insurance on government-run exchanges from 21 pages to three.

Recent polls show Americans are as split as Washington over the law.

A January CNN/ORC survey showed that 51 percent favor most or all of the proposals while 44 percent oppose most or all elements of the law. Those numbers are reversed from 2011, when only 45 percent were in favor and 51 percent opposed.

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