The White House applauded the Supreme Court decision to uphold Obamacare with a wink-and-a-nod to a 2010 f-bomb dropped by then-Vice President Joe Biden at the signing of the landmark legislation.
“It’s still a BFD,” White House chief of staff Ron Klain tweeted.
After introducing the president at the signing ceremony for the healthcare legislation on March 23, 2010, Biden turned and embraced then-President Barack Obama while excitedly whispering into his ear: "This is a big f*** deal” loud enough to be picked up by the cameras and microphones in the East Room.
President Biden acknowledged the blooper Thursday, and doubled down.
"With millions of people relying on the Affordable Care Act for coverage, it remains, as ever, a BFD. And it's here to stay," he tweeted.
On Thursday, the high court Thursday ruled 7-2 that Texas and 17 other states – plus two individuals – lacked standing to challenge the constitutionality of Obamacare.
The law's major provisions include protections for people with pre-existing health conditions, a range of no-cost preventive services and the expansion of the Medicaid program that insures lower-income people, including those who work in jobs that don’t pay much or provide health insurance.
Also left in place is the law’s now-toothless requirement that people have health insurance or pay a penalty. Congress rendered that provision irrelevant in 2017 when it reduced the penalty to zero.
The elimination of the penalty had become the hook that Texas and other Republican-led states, as well as the Trump administration, used to attack the law, arguing that without the mandate, the rest of the law should fall, too.
The Department of Health and Human Services released a report earlier this month showing a record 31 million Americans have health coverage through the Affordable Care Act, including 11.3 million people enrolled in the Obamacare exchanges as of February and 14.8 million newly-eligible, low-income people enrolled in Medicaid expansion as of December, CNN reported.
In addition, another 1.2 million Americans have selected policies for 2021 during a special enrollment period that Biden launched in mid-February to expand coverage to the uninsured. It runs until mid-August.
Fran Beyer ✉
Fran Beyer is a writer with Newsmax and covers national politics.
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