President Obama Explains Healthcare.gov

President Obama Explains Healthcare.gov

President Obama: Hello, everybody. I want to talk with you about a new consumer website, HealthCare.gov. It's a good resource for understanding the new law, and it offers a few simple tools to help you take your health care into your own hands. For the first time ever, you can see all your insurance options, public and private in one place. Let me show you how it works. Now, I have pretty good health care these days, but let's roll back the clock to when Michelle and I were just getting started in Chicago. From the homepage, I choose my state. Then answer a few more questions. Based on my choices, the system has returned options. The first points out that I may be eligible for health insurance that comes with a job, either my own or my spouse's. The second option is to explore the market for individual insurance options in my area. So let's try that. I'll plug in my Chicago Zip code, and it shows me all available private plans. This fall, there will be even more details, like pricing information to help you better compare your options. The page also shows you information about insurance markets in your state and how it will improve as we continue to implement the law. You'll also find information on new benefits and consumer protections. That's why we passed this reform, to put Americans in control of their health care. Americans like David Gallagher whose daughter wrote me a letter describing their family's anxieties after her father was denied insurance coverage simply because he once had hernia surgery. By 2014, no insurance company will be allowed to deny someone like David coverage because of a preexisting condition. But right now, he can use the finder I showed you to learn about the new preexisting condition insurance plans. There's also a link for these plans on the homepage. Or Thomas Wilkes, an 11-year-old who has a rare blood disease. As the cost of his care approached the lifetime cap on his father's insurance, they were running out of options. But now under the Families With Children section, the Wilkes can see that the Affordable Care Act has banned lifetime caps and stopped insurance companies from denying coverage to children based on preexisting conditions. Small business owners can learn about tax credits to help cover health insurance for employees and browse through available private insurance plans to shop for the best deal for their employees and business. Young people can learn more about staying on a parent's plan until age 26. There's information about how we are strengthening Medicare by cracking down on waste and fraud. Features like prevention tips and which hospitals provide the best care can inform your decisions about you and your family. No matter your age or situation, there's something for everyone at HealthCare.gov. So take a moment and check it out. Thanks.

NOTE: The transcript for this program may have been compiled from uncorrected Closed Captioning.