How ACA subsidies became a lifeline for millions of Americans
On Point with Meghna Chakrabarti
WBUR
4.2 • 3.5K Ratings
🗓️ 24 November 2025
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Some Obamacare subsidies are set to expire at the end of this year. This could double premiums for many enrollees. How a government subsidy that was intended to be temporary, became something millions of Americans cannot live without.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | WBUR Podcasts, Boston. |
| 0:09.4 | This is on point. I'm Megynachakrabardi. |
| 0:12.5 | On March 23, 2010, President Barack Obama and then Vice President Joe Biden approached a White House podium. |
| 0:21.3 | They were met with a standing ovation. |
| 0:27.9 | Biden spoke first. |
| 0:29.8 | I can't think of a day in the 37 years that I've been the United States Senator |
| 0:34.3 | in the short time I've been vice president, that it is more appropriately |
| 0:38.8 | stated. This is a historic day. Biden then continued. History is made when men and women |
| 0:45.5 | decide that there is a greater risk in accepting the situation that we cannot bear than in stealing |
| 0:51.8 | our spine and embracing the promise of change. |
| 0:56.1 | Then, President Obama took the podium to declare a new era in American health care. |
| 1:03.6 | Today, after over a year of debate, today, after all the votes have been tallied, health insurance reform becomes law |
| 1:15.5 | on the United States of America. |
| 1:19.0 | Obama and Biden were announcing the passage and imminent signing of the Affordable Care Act into law. |
| 1:27.2 | Now, the ACA was controversial from the start, not from the moment of its signing, but from the very |
| 1:33.0 | moment years earlier that President Obama had decided to make the ACA his signature legislative |
| 1:38.5 | effort. |
| 1:39.9 | In fact, zero Republicans in the House and Senate had voted in favor of the ACA. |
| 1:45.7 | And just one day before Obama signed the law, then House Minority Leader John Boehner did not relent on his attack. |
| 1:53.4 | Today we're standing here looking at a health care bill that no one in this body believes is satisfactory. |
| 2:02.6 | Today we stand here amidst the wreckage of what was once the respect and honor that this house |
| 2:08.8 | was held in by our fellow citizens. |
... |
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