(Bloomberg) – President Barack Obama said Thursday that Republicans should try to improve the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) rather than pushing ahead with attempts to kill the law.
"We now know for a fact that repealing the Affordable Care Act would increase the deficit, raise premiums for millions of Americans and take away insurance from millions more," Obama said at a PPACA public exchange program news conference.
The White House organized the news conference to announce that the commercial "qualified health plans" (QHPs) sold through the PPACA public exchanges have attracted 8 million people.
Officials gave little information about the 8 million signup article and did not say whether the figure referred to people who have simply chosen QHP coverage or actually paid for coverage.
Obama did use the news conference as a chance to criticize PPACA opponents.
"They still can't bring themselves to admit that the Affordable Care Act is working," Obama said.
Obama said Republicans should move on from "endless, fruitless" attempts to repeal PPACA.
