President Obama(Photo: Mark Humphrey, AP)
Emboldened by last week's Supreme Court decision upholding the health care law, President Obama said Wednesday the new system is now a permanent part of the landscape and he will work to improve it.
"I feel pretty good about how health care is going," Obama said during a town hall at an elementary school near Nashville, Tenn.
Obama — who also took health care questions via Twitter — said it is regrettable that health care has become "a political football," but it appears that legal challenges to the 2010 law are now over. The president urged a "constructive conversation" about how to improve the health care system moving forward.
Congressional Republicans said that, despite the high court decision upholding certain subsidies, the law itself remains the biggest threat to health care.
"Despite the president's promises, Obamacare is increasing costs for hardworking families," said Cory Fritz, spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. "States including Tennessee are bracing for double-digit premium hikes, and millions of Americans are foregoing treatment because of sky-high deductibles."
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Before a friendly crowd in Nashville, Obama said he wants to work with Congress and the states to help make the Affordable Health Care "even better," including efforts to reduce bureaucracy and produce better outcomes.
At certain points, Obama urged states run by Republicans to adopt Medicaid expansions offered by the law.
Tennessee's Republican governor, Bill Haslam, did propose extending Medicaid coverage to 280,000 low-income state residents, but the GOP-run legislature rejected it.
Citing what he called Tennessee's history of "innovation in health care," Obama told the crowd that "y'all should be able to find a solution."
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Again criticizing the politics and misinformation surrounding the law, Obama said that "Washington is kind of a crazy place ... But that doesn't mean every place has got to be crazy."
Republicans said that the Supreme Court decision did not fix the law's many problems.
Many people have to pay higher costs or saw their former policies canceled outright, said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
"The ruling won't change Obamacare's spectacular flops, from humiliating website debacles to the total collapse of exchanges in states," McConnell said.
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