The White House Blog

A $6 million manufacturer, a five-person carbon capture start-up, and a 70-person medical device company. On Monday, the President met with the leaders of these small businesses and 100 more like them to discuss the economy and the President’s commitment to small business success.

Organized by the National Small Business Association (NSBA), the group at the White House flew in from over 20 states and represented a broad cross-section of industries. The typical small business owner in the room employed 50 people, generating around $10 million in annual revenue.

As Alan Krueger, the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, wrapped up his remarks on the state of the economy, the President stopped by for a surprise visit.

According to Todd McCracken, President and CEO of NSBA, the small business leaders were “delighted with the event and the President’s visit. He had a great deal of comfort with a broad range of issues that affect small businesses, from economic and tax issues to the specifics about things such as patent policy and small business innovation funds.”

Ed. note: This post was first published on the official blog of healthcare.gov. You can see the original post here.

In the three years since the Affordable Care Act became law, the slower growth of health care costs is saving money in Medicare and the private insurance market, helping to curb previously skyrocketing premiums and making Medicare stronger.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that Medicare and Medicaid spending would be 15 percent less -- or about $200 billion— in 2020 than was previously projected, thanks to this slower growth. Medicare spending per beneficiary rose by just 0.4 percent in 2012, while Medicaid spending per beneficiary actually dropped by 1.9 percent last year. We are making Medicare stronger, too, by spending smarter, promoting coordinated care, and fighting fraud. Not only does this ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent wisely.  It means that those who count on Medicare -- our grandparents, parents, our friends, and neighbors – will have it for years to come.

Today, we are announcing that thanks to the Affordable Care Act, more than 6.3 million seniors and people with disabilities on Medicare have saved more than $6.1 billion on prescription drugs since the health care law was enacted three years ago. This is the result of the law’s closing of the prescription coverage gap known as “the donut hole.”

Nearly 3.5 million people with Medicare saved an average of more than $706 each on their prescriptions in 2012.

Ed. note: This post was first published on the official blog of healthcare.gov. You can see the original post here.

For decades before the passage of the Affordable Care Act, health care costs outstripped inflation, without corresponding improvements in health care quality. Our system didn’t incentivize quality or efficiency. We paid providers for the quantity of care, not the quality of care delivered. And we were not using technology to deliver smarter care.

The Affordable Care Act includes steps to improve the quality of health care and lower costs for you and for our nation as a whole. This means avoiding costly mistakes and readmissions, keeping patients healthy, rewarding quality instead of quantity, and creating the health information technology infrastructure that enables new payment and delivery models to work.

Here are just a few ways that the health care law builds a smarter health care system and incentivizes quality – not quantity of care - to drive down costs and save you money.

We’re Shifting the Focus to Quality, Not Quantity

The health care law creates new Accountable Care Organizations (ACO) that incentivize doctors and other providers to work together to provide more coordinated care to their patients. ACOs agree to take responsibility for the cost and quality of their patients and to improve care coordination, safety, and to promote appropriate use of preventive health services. And when this new care model saves the Medicare program money, that savings is shared with the ACO. Over 250 organizations are participating in Medicare ACOs, giving more than 4 million Medicare beneficiaries access to high-quality coordinated care throughout the nation. ACOs are estimated to save the Medicare program up to $940 million in the first four years.

The Affordable Care Act also ties Medicare Advantage bonus payments to the quality of coverage these private plans offer. This gives seniors a broader range of higher quality Medicare Advantage plans from which to choose. As a result, in 2013, the 14 million Medicare beneficiaries currently enrolled in Medicare Advantage have access to 127 four and five star plans, which is 21 more high-quality plans than were available in the previous year.

Keeping You Out of The Hospital

Every year, about 2.6 million seniors – or nearly one in five hospitalized Medicare enrollees – are readmitted within 30 days of discharge, at a cost of more than $26 billion to the Medicare program. Many of these readmissions stem from preventable problems. These rates can be drastically reduced if we do a better job coordinating care and support. The health care law’s Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program reduces Medicare payments to hospitals with relatively high rates of potentially preventable readmissions to encourage them to focus on this key indicator of patient safety and care quality.

We’re starting to see results. Medicare readmissions rates have remained stuck near 19 percent over the five years that the data has been collected (and likely for decades prior to that), but in 2012 the nationwide rate of hospital readmissions of Medicare patients declined to about 17.8 per cent. This translates to over 70,000 fewer preventable hospital readmissions.

Lowering Costs

Taken together these improvements are providing more value for your health care dollar and helping to fuel historically low cost growth rates in Medicare and Medicaid. Last year, Medicare cost growth increased by only 0.4 percent, continuing the historically low Medicare growth we saw in 2011 and 2010. Spending in Medicaid actually decreased 1.9 percent from 2011 to 2012.

And a recent report found that health care price inflation in January dropped to 1.5 percent, one of the smallest increases on record.

As the nation’s largest insurer, Medicare can lead the way in effective practices like this that deliver better care and drive down costs. Our goal is that these reforms and investments build a health care system that will ensure quality care for generations to come.

Learn more about key features of the Affordable Care Act:

• See how the Affordable Care Act is holding insurance companies accountable
• Learn how the Affordable Care is helping Abby live without fear of being denied coverage.
• Find out how the Affordable Care Act is giving you greater control over your health care.

Yesterday President Obama continued what's become a March tradition: For the fifth time, he sat down to fill out his brackets for the NCAA men and women's basketball tournaments -- and shared his picks with ESPN.

The President has Louisville, Ohio State, Florida, and Indiana headed to Atlanta for the Final Four.

He picked the Hoosiers to top the Cardinals in the National Championship game on April 8.

Download the full predictions here.

We’ll share the President’s pick for the women’s tournament on Friday. Be sure to check back!

Update! Here is President Obama's bracket for the women's tournament. 

As a community college teacher, I know that excellence happens every day in community college classrooms and campuses across this country. Both in my classroom and when I’m on the road visiting community colleges, I am fortunate to see firsthand the tremendous impact these schools have on so many students.  I see students striving, teachers inspiring, and administrators innovating – each doing their best to make the community college experience richer and more meaningful. President Obama has made community colleges a centerpiece of his goal to have the best-educated, most competitive workforce in the world.

Earlier today at the Newseum in Washington, DC, leaders in education and business congratulated Santa Barbara City College from California and Walla Walla Community College from Washington for being selected as co-winners of the 2013 Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence. Kingsborough Community College – CUNY from New York and Lake Area Technical Institute from South Dakota were honored as finalists-with-distinction.

Yesterday, in honor of Women’s History Month, we welcomed a group of high school students to participate in a conversation with a mentoring panel at the White House.

Our panel included luminaries from a diverse range of fields: Tamika Catchings, professional basketball player, and founder of Catch the Stars Foundation, which works with at-risk youth. Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers of America and a lifelong advocate for civil rights, workers, and women. Abbe Raven, President and CEO of A&E Networks. And Suni Williams, an astronaut who took recently took charge of the International Space Station.  Alex Wagner, News Anchor at MSNBC, moderated the panel.

Each woman talked about their trajectory, their role models and influences, and gave advice on success in their career. The young people in the audience asked questions such as, “What makes a strong woman?” and “What do you do during moments of self-doubt?”

It was a wonderful opportunity to have an honest dialogue between generations, and I left feeling so encouraged by the stories of the panelists and the voices of the audience.

This event was one in a series to honor Women’s History Month. It was followed by a celebration with President Obama and the First Lady in the Residence.

Ed. note: Click here to see the timeline of President Obama's promise to end the war in Iraq and support service members as they return home.

Ten years ago my US Army unit was returning from our final training exercise in preparation for deploying in support of Operation Iraq Freedom. We listened intensely as President Bush announced the start of the war 10 years ago today, and my platoon prepared to deploy as part of the 1st Armored Division into the breach of battle.  Within a few short weeks, my soldiers and I were rolling across the Kuwaiti border on our way to Baghdad to relieve the 3rd Infantry Division.

My soldiers and I spent most of the next 15 months based out of a Forward Operating Base on the banks of the Tigris River trying to bring stability to a chaotic and complex situation. We had a front row seat as the Iraqi’s celebrated the capture of Saddam Hussein, but also felt the war turn as we went from eating dinners in the homes of everyday Iraqi’s to fighting insurgents on the streets in places like Najaf.

Although there is still much to learn about this war, one thing is certain; President Obama’s commitment and focus on taking care of our service members brought this war to an end. He held to his promise and ensured that by December of 2011, “the last American soldiers will cross the border out of Iraq—with their heads held high, proud of their success, and knowing that the American people stand united in our support for our troops.”

President Barack Obama delivers remarks during the Women’s History Month reception in the East Room of the White House, March 18, 2013. Standing at right are First Lady Michelle Obama and Amanda McMillan, who introduced the President. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

President Obama today welcomed a group of accomplished and inspiring women to a reception in the East Room of the White House. The group, which included leaders like A&E Networks CEO Abbe Raven, Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, Girl Scouts' CEO Anna Maria Chávez, astronaut Sunita Williams, activists Dolores Huerta and Lilly Ledbetter, and WNBA star (and 3-time Olympic Gold Medalist) Tamika Catchings, joined the President, First Lady Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden to celebrate the progress women make in this country each and every day. President Obama highlighted the changes we've seen in the past century:

When I look around this room, it is hard to believe that 100 years ago this month, thousands of women were marching right outside this house demanding one of our most fundamental right: the right to vote, to have a say in our democracy. And today, a century later, its rooms are full of accomplished women who have overcome discrimination, shattered glass ceilings, and become outstanding role models for all of our sons and daughters. And that means we've come a long way, and that’s thanks to the efforts of so many people like you.

Because of the hard work and exemplary leadership of the women in this room, military families have protected family and medical leave. Women have legal recourse to fight against pay discrimination... Women have the opportunity to serve on the front lines of our military conflicts, and that means that they're getting paid and promoted equally. Women have the opportunity to make their own choices about their health.

Thomas Perez delivers remarks after President Barack Obama announced Perez as his nominee for Labor Secretary, in the East Room of the White House, March 18, 2013. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

President Obama today announced that he has chosen Thomas Perez, the head of the U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, to be the next Secretary of Labor. Speaking in the East Room of the White House, the President introduced Perez, the son of Dominican immigrants and a lawyer who helped pay his way through college by working as a garbage collector, to the American people.

"His story reminds us of this country’s promise, that if you’re willing to work hard, it doesn’t matter who you are, where you come from, what your last name is -- you can make it if you try," President Obama said. "And Tom has made protecting that promise -- for everybody  -- the cause of his life."