MORAL COMPASS

Obama Issues Plea to Save Affordable Care Act

Urges Congress to have “political courage.”

Former President Barack Obama on Sunday issued a plea to members of Congress to save the Affordable Care Act, just days after the GOP’s replacement plan, the American Health Care Act, passed its first hurdle in the House. “I hope that current members of Congress recognize it takes little courage to aid those who are already powerful, already comfortable, already influential—but it takes great courage to champion the vulnerable and the sick and the infirm,” he said while speaking at the John F. Kennedy Library, where he was presented with the Profiles in Courage award earlier in the night. Obama went on to say the issue goes far beyond party politics, stressing that there is a moral obligation to do “what, deep in our hearts, we know is right.” He also praised lawmakers who voted for the ACA in 2010, contrasting what he described as their selfless behavior with the callousness of those who would repeal it. The new health-care bill now faces a vote in the Senate after it won approval in the GOP-controlled House of Representatives last Thursday.