White House and Mayor Barrett Speak about President Obama's Visit

Mayor Tom Barrett made an appearance Wednesday outside Bruce-Guadalupe Community School to provide a preview of President Obama's visit to Milwaukee

He made the announcement to students of Bruce-Guadalupe Community School, they were very excited to learn the president would be visiting their school.

During his remarks the mayor said that he gives a lot a credit to Congresswoman Gwen Moore and County Executive Chris Abele, and all involved in signing people up, he says it was a community effort.

Milwaukee beat major cities like Chicago, Detroit, and Atlanta who were also part of the challenge. The mayor said the victory sends out a message nationwide that Milwaukee is engage as a community

“This is about working people being able to have healthcare for their families and I think that's in the finest American tradition to say this is how we treat the other people in our community, so it's something that's important and it's important to our economy,” said Barrett.

According to official White House information, just in Milwaukee 38,000 people newly selected a 2016 marketplace plan during the open enrollment period. All together with returning market place consumers about 89,000 people in the Milwaukee area selected this plan.

The White House announced the launch of the Healthy Communities Challenge in November of 2015, the main goal was to engage key communities with large numbers or high percentages of uninsured individuals in states across the country, to collaborate in efforts to get them insured.

CBS 58 spoke with the director of the White House Domestic Policy Council Council Cecilia Munoz who said President Obama is very excited  to congratulate the city for its win.

“The president is looking forward to going to UCC because they worked incredibly hard to enroll people. There was a broad community effort the mayor and the county executive were engaged and UCC did a lot of events and a lot of engagement. And really did an outstanding job in helping people learning about health insurance coverage, learn about how important it is to their well being to their  families' well being and learn about how affordable it is,” said Council Cecilia Munoz.

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