Robin Roberts asks Obama why Affordable Care Act tops his list
Robin Roberts pressed Barack Obama on Wednesday, and he named the Affordable Care Act as his greatest accomplishment in office. The answer came during a first joint network TV interview with Michelle Obama since they left office in 2017, just as the Obama Presidential Center prepares to open Friday.
Jackson Park and the Obama Center
The Obama Presidential Center covers 19 acres in Chicago’s Jackson Park, just steps from the University of Chicago, and cost $850 million. Its footprint includes 3.7 acres of parkland, offices for the Obama Foundation, an auditorium for public events, public art, athletic facilities, and a new branch of the Chicago Public Library.
The center’s centerpiece is a four-story museum, and Obama said it places his years in office inside a larger story that starts with the Declaration of Independence and runs through the civil rights and labor movements, then the grassroots political movement in Chicago that carried him into national politics. The fully digital presidential archives, developed with the National Archives and Records Administration, push the project beyond a memorial and into a public-facing archive.
Affordable Care Act at 50, 60 million
Obama said the law passed in March 2010 remains the achievement he would pick first from his two terms. He said it expanded Medicaid, added consumer protections, lowered insurance costs for households at or below the federal poverty level, and has helped 50, 60 million people.
“For all the resistance from our political opposition, the Affordable Care Act has now helped 50, 60 million people, and continues to help people even though the current Congress has tried to weaken it and taken away some of the subsidies that were really helping a lot of working people,” he told Roberts. He added, “I’m very proud of the message we sent to the country that we’re representing everybody.”
Obama’s public role after office
Obama also said public life after the White House has been a matter of judgment, not constant intervention. “You pick and choose your spots. I’m not suggesting I’ve done it perfectly,” he said, while adding, “I think Michelle, you know, very much would prefer a quieter life for us.” He contrasted that with the pressure from some supporters who want him “out every day, right, banging the drum.”
That restraint fits the tone of the interview itself. The Obamas used a rare shared television appearance to talk about legacy at the exact moment a new physical version of that legacy opens in Chicago, and Obama’s choice of the health law over anything more personal or symbolic puts policy, not nostalgia, at the center of his record.
