President Obama appears on 'Between Two Ferns' with Zach Galifinakis to appeal to younger Americans to register for health insurance before the March 31 deadline. (Funny or Die)
WASHINGTON, March 24 (UPI) -- President Obama became the first verified account on Quora as he answered questions about healthcare, as he pushes to get people to register before the March 31 deadline.
Obama was answering queries on the question-and-answer service and his presence on the platform coincided with a new profile verification system launched by Quora. Obama's verified account guarantees that he and the White House were answering questions from the online community, rather than an impersonator.
"We think the president answering questions about his signature health care law is the ultimate Quora experience," said Alex Wu, Quora's head of product marketing and partnerships.
Obama began by answering two questions that were already on the site and will answer a few more questions during the week, according to Wu.
Obama answered a question addressing the improvements to healthcare.gov. The president said that the government is working on improving response times and and adding more staff to call centers to help people enroll over the phone.
"Now, it's no secret to anyone that we had some issues with the website at launch. But that was months ago," Obama wrote.
The White House has confirmed that it was the president himself answering the questions and not a staffer.
"As we continue our efforts to enroll as many Americans as possible for quality, affordable health insurance ahead of the March 31st deadline, the President's goal is to meet people -- especially young adults -- where they are."
Wu said that the company will start verifying the profiles of other public figures and prominent members Monday. Quora aims to create an online community and build a collection of questions and answers that are created, edited and moderated by users.
Mark Cuban, Ashton Kutcher, Reed Hastings, Craig Newmark, Jeremy Lin, Sheryl Sandberg, Alfonso Cuaron, Jason Bateman, Cory Booker and Michael Buble are among other prominent members expected to get verified profiles.
[CNET]
[USAToday]
