Posted on February 17, 2014

Obama: Signing Up For Obamacare Is "Just Part Of Growing Up"

CHARLES BARKLEY: What do you think of the term Obamacare?"



PRESIDENT OBAMA: I like it. I don't mind. And I tell you, five years from now, when everybody's saying, 'Man, I'm sure glad we got healthcare,' there are going to be a whole bunch of people who don't call it Obamacare anymore because they don't want me to get the credit. But you don't know what life will throw at you. And sometimes people don't recognize, particularly young people, how important it is to have coverage until you get sick and you realize you may lose everything you have, or your parents may lose everything they have, trying to make you well. So we're encouraging people to sign up. They've got until March 31 to sign up for this year.



BARKLEY: So, if you can speak to a specific group, I guess you really talking about young adults --



OBAMA: Folks our age, I mean I wouldn't call us old yet --



BARKLEY: We're knocking on the door.



OBAMA: We are knocking on the door. So once you are 50, you wake up sometimes -- does this happen to you, Chuck? -- you wake up and something hurts and you don't know exactly what happened. Right?



BARKLEY: Everything hurts when I wake up.



OBAMA: When you were young, you know, you had to actually have an injury before something hurts. We'd like to encourage more young people to sign up, partly because since they're healthier, their premiums are actually generally going to be fairly cheap. They can find good options for less than their cable bill, less than their cell phone bill. And it's just part of growing up -- is making sure you're taking care of your body, your health. If you have a young family, you have to make sure that your family's protected with health insurance, as well. This allows you to do it.