Mrs. Obama rarely gets involved in her husband’s policy battles. But public opinion polls show she’s a more popular advocate than her husband, so she’s helping push the ACA to the public. Mrs. Obama also appeared on three African-American radio shows to encourage Americans to enroll. Minorities are less likely to have health insurance, so the administration has been targeting them in sign-up campaigns.
The Administration needs millions of Americans – especially younger, healthy people – to sign up through new exchanges to keep prices low. Insurance sign-ups through the exchanges have been hindered in the first months but the number of sign ups have increased tremendously.
Obama told seven moms and one aunt sitting on couches in the Oval Office that their experiences keep him fighting to make the law work. Several of the moms have children with pre-existing conditions that are required to be covered by the law or have sons and daughters who now are able to stay on family plans until age 26. The first lady added that convincing young adults that they aren’t invincible is “our job as mothers.”