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Affordable Care Act

Obama Calls On Congress To Have 'Courage' On Health Care

Former President Barack Obama speaks after receiving the 2017 John F. Kennedy Profile In Courage Award at the John F. Kennedy library on Sunday in Boston.

Former President Barack Obama urged Republicans to be guided by a personal standard of ethics and integrity, not political avarice, as they forge ahead with plans to dismantle the Affordable Care Act — his signature legislation.

Obama had refrained from weighing in on the bitter health care battle, but he broke his silence while accepting the Profile in Courage Award at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston on Sunday night.


He also had these words of caution for members of the Senate, who will be taking up the repeal-and-replace plan next: "I hope they understand that courage means not simply doing what is simply politically expedient, but doing what [people] believe in their hearts is right."

Obama never mentioned President Trump by name, but he did say that despite valiant efforts by many leaders who had come before him, health care overhaul had failed because "it was hard," adding that it is "easily subject to misinformation and fearmongering."

He commended the members of Congress who voted to push through the Affordable Care Act, which came to be known as Obamacare, in 2009 and 2010, saying they did so at great political peril to their own careers. Several lawmakers lost their seats in the following midterm elections.

"These men and women did the right thing. They did the hard thing. Theirs was a profile in courage," Obama said.

Further reflecting on his first term, Obama recalled the brief period when Democrats and Republicans worked together to stave off a series of national crises. Amid the financial chaos that followed his inauguration, Obama said, the two sides enacted laws that kept the economy from free fall and saved the auto industry.

In addition to the words of advice he doled out to elected officials, Obama also shared words of encouragement with the electorate at large. (After all, he's one of them now.)

"Everywhere we see the risk of falling into the refuge of tribe and clan and anger at those who don't look like us," he said, adding, "At such moments, we need courage to stand up to hate."

The Kennedy library bestowed the award upon Obama for securing health coverage for millions of Americans, a cause that was long championed by Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, who died in 2009. Caroline Kennedy, the senator's niece and the daughter of former President John F. Kennedy, presented Obama with the award.

"Today, when many doubt the integrity of our elected leaders, this award is more important than ever," Caroline Kennedy said. She was followed by her son, Jack Schlossberg, who praised Obama for inspiring millions of young people like himself to become politically active.

"Without President Obama, I might still be sitting on my couch eating Doritos and watching sports," he said.

The Obama-Biden bond appears to still be strong: After thanking the former first lady, Michelle, Obama also took a moment to note the former vice president, "the best vice president this country's ever known, Mr. Joe Biden."

Obama is the third president to receive the Profile in Courage Award. Gerald Ford was honored in 2001 for "making a controversial decision of conscience to pardon former President Richard M. Nixon." George H.W. Bush was a recipient in 2014 for the 1990 decision to raise taxes, despite declaring in his 1988 campaign, "Read my lips: No new taxes."

Read the full text of Obama's speech:



I also want to thank you and Rose and Tatiana and your dad for sharing Caroline with us the past few years as America's ambassador to Japan.

Caroline, you, true to form, did your country proud, and I'm sure your father and mom would have been proudest of all. I sure was proud, and I'm grateful for your friendship.


It is wonderful — it is wonderful to see Senators Markey and Senator Warren; my dear friend and former governor, Deval Patrick, and his lovely wife, Diane; governors and members of Congress; Cardinal O'Malley; one of the finest secretary of states ever to represent America around the world, John Kerry, and Theresa; and the best vice president this country has ever known, Mr. Joe Biden.

I also want to thank Michelle Obama for, after the presidency, sticking with me because I think she felt an obligation to the country to stay on. But once her official duties were over, it wasn't clear. I love my wife. And I'm grateful for her. And I do believe that it was America's great good fortune to have her as first lady.

So I am humbled by this evening and to be honored by a family that has given this country so much, a family that's challenged us to ask what we can do for our country, to dream and say why not, a secret cause that endures and to sail against the wind in its pursuit. 


I could not be more grateful to the Profile in Courage Award Committee for this honor. I'm also grateful that, unlike the Nobel Prize Committee, you waited until I was out of office.

How fitting that we gather here this month, the 100th anniversary of President Kennedy's birth. I was born the year he took office, which makes me 55 years old. Had he lived to finish two terms, he would have been just 51. And he remarked on that possibility once. "It has been suggested," he said, "that whether I serve one or two terms in the presidency, I will find myself at the end of that period at what might be called the awkward age, too old to begin a career and too young to write my memoirs."

Now, I hadn't seen this quote when I wrote my first memoir at 33. I'm now in the middle of my second. Moreover, I expect to be busy if not with a second career, then at least a second act. But it is true that I'm at the age, at that turn in the road, where one looks back as well as forward to remember one — where one has been, so it's better to chart where one is going.

And one thing I'm certain is that I was lucky to be born into that new frontier, a new world and a new generation of Americans. My life in many ways would not have been possible without the vision that John F. Kennedy etched into the character and hearts of America.



The responsibility that each of us have to play a part in our nation's destiny, and by virtue of being Americans, play a part in the destiny of the world.  I can see truthfully that the example of Jack and Bobby Kennedy helped guide me into politics and that the guidance of Teddy Kennedy made me a better public servant once I arrived in Washington.



He entered the Oval Office at just 43, only a few years after Khrushchev had threatened to bury America. Wars raged around the world. Large swaths of the country knew poverty far deeper and more widespread than we see today. A young preacher's cause was just gaining traction against a land segregated not only by custom but by law. 

And yet in that volatile tinderbox of a time, President Kennedy led with a steady hand, diffusing the most perilous moment of the Cold War without firing a single shot and forcing the rights of young black men and women to study at the university of their choice. Unleashing a corps of young volunteers as ambassadors for peace in distant corners of the globe. Setting America's sights on the moon precisely because it was hard, unwilling to consider the possibility that we might not win the space race because he had an unwavering faith in the character of the people that he led: resilient, optimistic, innovative and courageous.




And that's why JFK's first inaugural still rings true. That's why Bobby's campaign still means so much. That's why Teddy's cause endures, and we still love him so much.

Because of the tragedies that befell each of them, sometimes we forget how fundamentally the story they told us about ourselves changed the trajectory of America. And that's often where courage begins, with the story we tell ourselves about who we are and what's important and about our own capacity to make a difference.

We live in a time of great cynicism about our institutions. That's one of the few things that Democrats and Republicans can agree on. It's a cynicism that's most corrosive when it comes to our system of self-government, that clouds our history of jagged, sometimes tentative but ultimately forward progress, that impedes our children's ability to see in the noisy and often too trivial pursuits of politics the possibility of our democracy doing big things.

Of course, disdain for elected officials is not new, as many of you in the room can tell others. Sixty years ago, President Kennedy quoted a columnist in "Profiles in Courage" who had written, "People don't give a damn what the average senator or congressman says. The reason they don't care is that they know what you hear in Congress is 99 percent tripe, ignorance, and demagoguery and not to be relied upon."

Which is perhaps a little harsh. Ninety-nine percent seems high. Eighty-five?

But President Kennedy also wrote that "the complication of public business and the competition for the public's attention have obscured innumerable acts of political courage, large and small, performed almost daily."

Innumerable acts of political courage large and small performed almost daily. And that is true. I've seen it. I've witnessed it.


They took votes to save the financial system and the economy, even when it was highly unpopular. They took votes to save the auto industry when even in Michigan, people didn't want to see bailouts. They took votes to crack down on abuses on Wall Street, despite pressure from lobbyists and sometimes their donors.

And they found themselves in the midst of a great debate, a debate that had been going on for decades, a debate that the Kennedy family had participated in and helped lead: a debate about whether a nation as wealthy as the United States of America would finally make health care not a privilege but a right for all Americans.








I hope they understand that courage means not simply doing what is politically expedient but doing what they believe deep in their hearts is right. And this kind of courage is required from all of us. Those of us who consider ourselves progressives, those of us who are Democrats, we've got some soul-searching to do to see what kind of courage we show. We have our own dogmas. Those of us not in elected office have to show some courage. And we're prone to bestow the mantle of courage too easily on the prominent and the powerful and then too eager to wrap ourselves in cynicism when they let us down because they weren't perfect.

We lose sight sometimes of our own obligations, each of ours, all the quiet acts of courage that unfold around us every single day, ordinary Americans who give something of themselves not for personal gain but for the enduring benefit of another. The courage of a single mom who is working two jobs to make sure her kid can go to college. The courage of a small-business owner who's keeping folks on the payroll because he knows the family relies on it, even if it's not always the right thing to do bottom line. The courage of somebody who volunteers to help some kids who need help.


I'm reminded of a story that Teddy once told me about his experiences many years ago when Teddy Jr., now state Senator Ted Kennedy Jr., was sleeping after one of his cancer treatments.

And Ted would wander the halls of the hospital and talk with other parents, keeping vigil over their own children. These parents lived in constant fear of what might happen if they couldn't afford the next treatment. Some calculating in their own minds what they might have to sell or borrow just to make it for a few more months, some bargaining with God for whatever they could get.



That's what the ordinary courage of everyday people can inspire when you're paying attention, the quiet sturdy courage of ordinary people doing the right thing day in and day out. They don't get attention for it. They don't seek it. They don't get awards for it. But that's what's defined America.




I think of dreamers who suppress their fears to keep working and striving in the only country they've ever called home. And every American who stands up for immigrants because they know that their parents or grandparents or great-grandparents were immigrants too, and they know that America is an idea that only grows stronger with each new person who adopts our common creed.



Every citizen inspired by that history who dips their toes in the water of active democracy for the first time and musters up the determination to try and fail and try again, and sometimes fail again and still try again, knowing their efforts aren't always rewarded right away, because they believe in that upward trajectory of the American story, a story that nobody told better than John F. Kennedy.


I don't know whether President Kennedy's aide and friend, historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. was right when he wrote that history unfolds in cycles, but I do know that it doesn't move in a straight line.






That's the spirit that has brought America so far, and that's the spirit that will always carry us to better days.



Thank you.

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