Obama hails health care ruling as win for 'hard-working' Americans

Yahoo – AFP, 25 June 2015

Supporters of the Afforable Care Act rally outside the US Supreme Court on

June 25, 2015 in Washington, DC (AFP Photo/Brendan Smialowski)

Washington (AFP) - US President Barack Obama on Thursday hailed the Supreme Court's decision to uphold his legacy-gilding health care law, casting it as a win for ordinary Americans.

"Today is a victory for hard-working Americans all across this country," Obama said in the White House Rose Garden, eschewing overt political gloating despite a victory that cements his signature domestic policy achievement.

Obama's Republican foes have tried repeatedly to overturn the law, which expanded insurance coverage to millions more Americans.

The Supreme Court decision was the most serious challenge to those reforms among 50 votes in Congress and a plethora of court filings.

In this instance, the high court's nine justices could have gutted subsidies essential to the program.

"This is not about the Affordable Care Act as legislation or Obamacare as a political football. This is health care in America," Obama said.

US President Barack Obama speaks alongside US Vice President Joe Biden about

the Supreme Court's ruling to uphold the subsidies that comprise the Affordable

Care Act in the Rose Garden of the White House, June 25, 2015 (AFP Photo/Saul Loeb)

"The Affordable Care Act is here to stay."

Slamming "misinformation campaigns" and "doomsday predictions," Obama quickly said he was ready to work with Republicans on further reforms.

"My greatest hope is that rather than keep refighting battles that have been settled again and again and again, I can work with Republicans and Democrats to move forward."

But in a sign of how central Obama believes the law is to his presidential legacy, he described it as on par with the passage of health care coverage for the oldest and very poorest Americans during Lyndon B. Johnson's 1960s "War on Poverty."

"This generation of Americans chose to finish the job, to turn the page on a past when our citizens could be denied coverage just for being sick," he said.

Obamacare prevented insurers from barring people from coverage who had pre-existing medical conditions.

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Photo: Charles Dharapak, AP)