Michelle Obama to Sharpton: Obamacare Benefits Get Lost in Political ‘Back and Forth’

Al Sharpton previewed his radio interview with First Lady Michelle Obama on his MSNBC show Wednesday afternoon. In the short clips, the first lady defended the Affordable Care Act by offering personal stories about when she and other women she has met have benefited from access to health care.

Sharpton remarked that Michelle Obama is able to bring a “passion and a perspective” to the issue that transcends the “partisan bickering” of both Washington and talk radio.

After telling the story of a mother who cried herself to sleep at night because her son was diagnosed with cancer and she didn’t know how she would pay for the treatment, Obama told Sharpton, “That’s the kind of personal story that’s often missed in that back and forth.” She noted that it’s easy to “confuse” an issue like health care that should be fairly “plain and simple.”

Sharpton took the first lady’s relatively benign comments to the next level rhetorically by accusing Republicans of trying to “confuse” the issue by “smearing the navigators” and “trying to scare young people” out of buying insurance. “Like the first lady said,” he concluded, “this is a simple issue. It’s about taking care of our fellow Americans and putting people before politics.”

Watch video below, via MSNBC:

The full interview will air tomorrow, Thursday, December 19th at 1:15pm ET across the host’s syndicated network.

[photo via screengrab]

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