President Obama Announces Support for Changes to the 2010 Health Care Law

President Barack Obama told the attendees of the National Governor’s Conference in Washington, D.C., today that he supports amending the historic health-care bill passed by Congress last year to allow individual states to opt out of some of the law’s requirements three years earlier than they are currently allowed to do so.

Under the proposed legislation, states can request federal permission to bypass the health-care law’s mandates if they can prove that they can find alternative ways to cover as many people as the original law would at the same expense.

Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers have praised President Obama’s announcement, because it will allow the states to enact health-care reform in an individualized manner, though states must do several things to obtain a waiver to opt out of the health care law’s requirements.

The Commonwealth Club has featured numerous programs related to health-care and health-care reform, which you can find on our special health-care resources page

–By Ella Arnold