Obamacare ‘Here To Stay’ Says President, Telling GOP To Give Up Repeal Obsession

After the Obamacare deadline Monday which saw a surge of enrollments to take the total beyond the projected 7 million that the White House had hoped for, President Barack Obama told Republican opponents of the new health care law, in so many words, to get a life. But Republicans weren’t listening, warning the president that the health care law’s success “will come back to bite him.”

The Republican-led House of Representatives has voted at least 50 times to repeal all or part of the so-called Obamacare law, actually named the Affordable Care and Patient Protection Act.

After Monday’s massive sign-ups which saw the law top out at 7.1 million enrollments, House Speaker John Boehner vowed that the GOP effort to repeal Obamacare would continue. On Tuesday, GOP Rep. Paul Ryan unveiled the Republican budget proposal, which also includes a full repeal of Obamacare.

The 7.1 million figure does not include 4.5 million people who now qualify for Medicaid coverage under the expansion of that program under Obamacare, nor 3 million people 26 years and under who are covered by their parents’ health care plans under the new law.

That brings to a total of almost 15 million Americans who will be covered by health insurance due to the Obamacare law this year, who would have had no coverage without the law.

Neither Boehner nor Ryan explained what would happen to those 15 million people who would be stripped of health care coverage if Republicans were to somehow succeed in repealing the Obamacare law.

But that’s not going to happen, Obama promised Tuesday, chiding the GOP for its seemingly tireless efforts to stop uninsured Americans from receiving health insurance.

“I don’t get it,” he said. “Why are folks working so hard for people not to have health insurance? Why are they so mad about the idea of folks having health insurance?”

Obama also poked fun at what he called Republican “tall tales” about the Obamacare law.

“There are still no death panels,” Obama said in a White House Rose Garden address. “Armageddon has not arrived.”

He then called on congressional Republicans to give up their repeal efforts.

“In the end, history is not kind to those who deny Americans basic economic security,” the president warned. “Nobody remembers well those who stand in the way of America’s progress or our people. That’s what the Affordable Care Act represents.”

Obama told the GOP that the “debate” on repealing Obamacare is now “over,” declaring, “The Affordable Care Act is here to stay.”