White House press secretary Jay Carney acknowledged that President Obama signing up for an Obamacare plan has no real meaning because he won’t be covered by it anyway, and that the president had an assistant work through the website sign-up for him.
The administration announced before Christmas that Obama “was pleased to participate in a plan as a show of support for these marketplaces which are providing quality, affordable health care options to more than a million people” and chose a bronze plan, even though “the president is one of the 85 percent of Americans who gets his health insurance through his employer and, like previous presidents, is privileged to receive health care from the military.”
Today, Carney called it “largely a symbolic move to demonstrate, obviously, his commitment, which I don’t think could be any clearer, to the Affordable Care Act.”
“So, it’s correct that, like all presidents, he gets his military care from the military — I mean his health care from the military. But he enrolled for that reason, to — because he said he would and because he believes that, as so many millions of Americans have demonstrated over the past several months, that it is very much a product that is worth having,” he added.
When pressed on the topic, Carney acknowledged Obama “did not physically enroll.”
“I don’t think anybody would doubt how busy the president is or anyone would doubt that this president is highly computer literate, but his assistant did the enrollment for him,” he added.
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