President Barack Obama’s signature health-care law will “work really well” by 2017, former White House senior adviser David Plouffe said Sunday.
“This program was designed to be implemented by the states, and in most of the states that are running their exchanges, it’s going quite well,” Plouffe told George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week.”
“You talked about Medicaid expansion,” Plouffe continued. “I think it’s just a fact, and it may take until 2017 when this president leaves office, you’re going to see almost every state in this country running their own exchanges eventually and expanding Medicaid. And I think it’ll work really well then.”
Plouffe was optimistic about the level of interest people have had in the health-care exchanges.
On Sunday, the Obama administration claimed it has successfully revamped HealthCare.gov, the failures of which have dogged the White House in recent months. (RELATED: Officials claim partial repair of Obamacare website, fail to meet user success target)
And while the website might be working better, Stephanopoulos noted the hits the president’s image — specifically on competence and trustworthiness — has taken thanks to the failures of the Obamacare rollout, and pressed the former Obama adviser on how he would right the ship.
“Well, this has been tough patch and it’s not just health care. You know, the shutdown affected everybody’s confidence in government,” Plouffe said.
According to Plouffe, the president’s numbers will improve in the coming months.
“Let’s fast forward to the State of the Union and the months ahead,” he said. “Healthcare.gov working better, a lot of people signing up, the economy continuing to strengthen, hopefully no Washington shutdowns. I think the president’s numbers will recover. I think people’s confidence will recover.
“And then we need to push Congress to do immigration, to do smart things to help the economy,” the former adviser continued. “That’s — the American people are sitting at home and saying we’re talking about all these issues except what’s most important to me, which is my job and which is my, estate — my income. And that’s what Washington needs to focus on. The American people are screaming out, focus on us, what’s important to us.”