Obamacare enjoyed a nice boost this week after weeks of negative coverage.
A record number of Americans signed up for the program on Thursday, which was believed to be the last day to enroll in health insurance coverage that starts in the new year, President Obama said Friday.
This comes as Republicans –who will control Congress and the White House following President-Elect Donald Trump’s inauguration January 20– say they’ll repeal the law as soon as they can.
“Yesterday was the biggest day ever for Healthcare.gov. More than 670,000 Americans signed up to get coverage,” Obama said in his last press conference before heading to Hawaii for the Christmas holiday. President Obama’s revelation is compared to 600,000 sign-ups last year on the December 15 deadline.
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As it turns out, so many people visited the Healthcare.gov website that the administration decided to extend the deadline until early next week to give more people time to sign up for what could be the last year of Obamacare coverage.
During Friday’s press conference, President Obama also noted that 44 million Americans lacked health insurance when he took office. “Today, we have covered more than 20 million of them,” he said. “For the first time in history, more than 90 percent of Americans are insured.”