said, will have now said, healthcare should be a right, not a privilege. and with the help of members of congress, especially nancy, and the advocates, families who are here today, 12 years ago last month, 12 years ago, we made a good effort toward that proposition. and it should be right. when and barack, when you signed the affordable care act into law, it became the most consequential piece of health insurance most consequential piece of legislation in my view since the creation of medicare and medicaid in 1965. it made a difference in people s lives every day. you just talked about where we were before the affordable care act and what happened in the past 12 years to make life a lot better for people. i d like to talk about where we go from here.
forms of social security and medicare, it was a starter home. it secured the principle of universal healthcare, provided help immediately to families. but it required us to continually build on it. and make it better. and president biden understands that, and that s what he s done since the day he took office. as part of the american rescue plan, he lowered the cost of healthcare even further for millions of people. he made signing up easier, made outreach to those who didn t know they could get covered, make sure that they knew, made that a priority. and as a result of these actions, he helped a record 14.5 million americans get covered during the most recent enrollment period.
coverage, and i got a little practice when you gave me that other act, you know, when we were president. you were president. i was with you. look, close the medicaid coverage gap that locks nearly 4 million americans out of coverage just because their states refuse to expand medicaid. lower prescription drug costs, which was mentioned already by allowing medicare to negotiate prices for drugs that are on the market. we can do this. we should do this. we have to do this. but let me close with this. 12 years ago, at a bill signing of the affordable care act, president obama said, quote, we re a nation that does what is hard, what is necessary, and what is right. that s exactly what he did. exactly what he did. and folks, that s what we have to do. that s what we do as americans. you know, it s what all of you did here in making the affordable care act possible. i really mean it.
it it is so good to laugh. i m teaching young people how to travel to other countries while you re young. and you re shamelessly also holding that book up. but you brought up medicine. so this is a perfect segue to get into obama care. what s your take on everything that people are talking about? well, what we were talking about the affordable care act. you know why i think it s good? who has the best health care in america? congress. congress. now, you work for me. i pay your benefits and you don t want me to have what you have. i think everybody deserves great health care. even prisoners get great health care, free health care. what do you think of all the criticism? president obama certainly has taken a ton of heat on what was going to be a showcase for his administration. martin, when they first started social security you know, you were living back then. it didn t work when that first started. medicare didn t work when that first started.
insurance plans they re on. contrary to some promises, people are losing their jobs and losing hours. this reaction is to that. to me the interesting part of the debate here is you re talking about the president s legacy. we re talking about real people s problems. i understand. that s what we re trying to step forward from. you could win this time or win later if people don t like the program. last word from chaka fattah. medicare didn t have any drug prescription programs. the democrats didn t think that was a good way to go. but we accepted it. and we didn t try to get rid of it. what we did was eliminate the doughnut hole so seniors got all of the help they needed. that s what republicans should do now. if they think there s a problem with the affordable care act, help us amend it. but we re never going to see this ended. we re not going back to a country where folks don t have insurance for their families.