*Barack Obama said Wednesday that multiple GOP efforts to repeal his signature health care law have been “aggravating.”
Speaking to a group of young activists at an event held by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in New York, the former president said: “When I see people trying to undo that hard-won progress, for the 50th or 60th time, with bills that will raise costs, reduce coverage, or roll back protections for older Americans or people with pre-existing conditions — the cancer survivor, the expecting mom, the child with autism or asthma, for whom coverage will be almost unattainable, it is aggravating.”
“It’s certainly frustrating to have to mobilize every couple months to keep our leaders from inflicting real human suffering on our constituents,” Obama said of the multiple repeal bills that have come up and failed in Congress since Donald Trump took office.
He said that efforts done without any “plain common sense rationale” were especially vexing.
But setbacks are part of progress, Obama noted, adding that young liberals must continue to fight.
The former president was the keynote speaker at the New York event dedicated to “accelerating world progress.”
Republicans have passed an Obamacare repeal bill in the House but have so far failed to do so in the Senate. A last-ditch effort to replace Obamacare with block grants to the states, led by Senators Lindsey Graham and Bill Cassidy, could come up for a vote as soon as next week.
Obama also warned Wednesday that nationalist sentiments could stymie efforts to combat poverty and disease.
“Nationalist thought, xenophobic sentiment … a politics that threatens to turn good people away from the kind of collective action that has always driven human progress,” Obama said.
Obama said it was essential to maintain an optimistic view in the face of hostile forces.
“We just have to reject the notion that we are suddenly gripped by forces that we can’t control, and embrace the longer, more optimistic view of history and the part that we play in it,” he said.
He insisted that America is a better place to live now than it ever has been, despite an onslaught of bad news.
“I know that statement doesn’t seem to jibe with the steady stream of bad news and cynicism we’re fed on television and Twitter,” he said.
The former president also spoke about climate change, calling it the “threat that may define the contours of this century more than any other.”
Without mentioning Trump, Obama said that individuals and organizations must continue working on solutions to climate change, even if the US government has disengaged on the issue.
“Even if the federal government is not as engaged on these efforts as I would like,” the world is still making progress, Obama said.
Watch Obama’s entire speech below:
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