"Air Force One touched down at Love Field in Dallas at 4:48 pm, one hour behind schedule.
En route, White House press secretary Jay Carney said the president chose Dallas to talk about Obamacare because it’s one of the top 10 cities in terms of uninsured Americans.
President Barack Obama meets with selected guests after Air Force One landed at Dallas Love Field on Wednesday.
The figures he cited: 1.1 million people in the Dallas-Fort Worth area who are uninsured but eligible for help under Obamacare. Of those, 40 percent of them Latino – a politically significant data point, as Democrats eye eventual control of Texas — and about 550,000 with incomes below 138 percent of the federal poverty line, which means they’re out of luck because of the state’s refusal to expand Medicaid.
“We can’t force them to expand. The Supreme Court ruled on this,” Carney said, insisting the president’s trip isn’t any sort of effort to shift focus from rollout problems. “I can promise you that whether or not the website worked we would be going to places like Dallas, where the education effort and outreach effort is underway, to reach these dense pockets of uninsured Americans.”
He noted a University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll released Wednesday showing that while Obamacare is overall unpopular in Texas, elements are very popular, including a potential Medicaid expansion. He contrasted Gov. Rick Perry with other governors who have taken that step.
“Those governors are focused on their constituents,” he said. “While it’s perhaps the case that Texas Republicans might not be responsive to the views of a Democratic president, a Democratic administration, they may at least take into account to some degree the views of their constituents.”
Obama is heading to Temple Emanu-El, to meet with navigators hired by the Communities Foundation of Texas to help people enroll through the troubled HealthCare.gov site. He’ll also thank volunteers from Dallas Area Interfaith. The coalition of religious and other groups working to spread the word about the new marketplace, raising $100,000 to distribute 30,000 pamphlets educating local residents about their options.
After that, he’ll head to back-to-back fund-raisers for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the party arm tasked with electing as many Democrats to the U.S. Senate as possible. Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., the DSCC chairman, flew with Obama to Dallas to mingle with donors at the homes of Dallas lawyers Peter Kraus and Russell Budd."
http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2013/11/obama-arrives-in-dallas-to-make-the-case-for-obamacare.html/
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