I agree with him (on this issue). We as a society cannot turn our backs on people who don't measure up, financially, because of age, health, inability to support their children for legitimate reasons. I don't want to live in a country where the poor are left to go hungry, the old and ill are left to rot on the sidewalk, and the disabled are unable to get care they need to survive.
Also, I don't want to hear about how private donations should take over for welfare, medicare and social security. They wouldn't come close to paying the cost of living expenses and medical costs of the millions of sick, poor and disabled in this country. Hell, people here give a smaller percent in charitable contributions overall than just about any other western nation on earth. I'll be damned if I want to put the lives of our most vulnerable in the hands of such international cheapskates.
Yes, cheapskates, proven every time someone bellyaches about "their tax dollars paying those lazy welfare queens" and "old people too stupid to save for their own retirement" (which translates into "too stupid to realize that inflation would turn a nest egg that would have provided a 20-year retirement in 1960 into the amount a middle-class banker requires annually just to survive.")
So, yeah. I agree with Obama on this.