Obama Takes Victory Lap: 'This Law Is Working Better Than We Expected'

President Obama emerged in the Rose Garden for a victory lap after the Supreme Court rule in favor of Obamacare subsidies, declaring that his signature law “set this country on a smarter, stronger course.”

“And today, after more than 50 votes in Congress to repeal or weaken this law, after a presidential election based in part on preserving or repealing this law, after multiple challenges to this law before the Supreme Court, the Affordable Care Act is here to stay,” Obama said, with Vice President Joe Biden at his side.

“This is not an abstract thing anymore. This is not a set of political talking points. This is reality. We can see how it is working. This law is working exactly as it’s supposed to. In many ways, this law is working better than we expected it to.”

Obama added that “for all the misinformation campaigns, all the Doomsday predictions, all the talk of death panels and job disruption, for all the repeal attempts, this law is now helping tens of millions of Americans, and they have told me that it has changed their lives for the better.”

“…This law is working. And it’s going to keep doing just that. Five years in, this is no longer about a law. This is not about the Affordable Care Act as legislation or Obamacare as a political football. This is health care in America.”

The president lamented that “unlike Social Security or Medicare, a lot of Americans still don’t know what Obamacare is beyond all the political noise in Washington.”

“Across the country, there remain people who are directly benefiting from the law but don’t even know it. And that’s OK. There’s no card that says ‘Obamacare’ when you enroll,” he said. “But that’s by design, for this has never been a government takeover of health care, despite cries to the contrary.”

“…We chose to write a new chapter where, in a new economy, Americans are free to change their jobs or start a business, chase a new idea, raise a family free from fear, secure in the knowledge that portable, affordable health care is there for us and always will be and that if we get sick, we’re not going to lose our home, that if we get sick, that we’re going to be able to still look after our families. That’s when America soars, when we look out for one another and we take care of each other, when we root for one another’s success, when we strive to do better and to be better than the generation that came before us and try to build something better for generations to come.”