Obama: More insured thing to be proud of

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama took to the White House Rose Garden on Tuesday to mark the administration’s success in signing up more than 7 million people for private insurance under his health-care law and to confront his political opponents who continue to press for the law’s repeal.

“All told because of this law, millions of our fellow citizens know the economic security of health insurance who didn’t just a few years ago,” Obama said. “That’s something to be proud of, regardless of your politics or your feelings about me, or your feelings about this law. That’s something that’s good for our economy, and it’s good for our country. There’s no good reason to go back.”

The number of enrollees beat the initial estimate of 7 million insurance sign-ups under the law, which was scaled back after technical flaws with healthcare.gov when it went online in October. The Congressional Budget Office in February projected that 6 million people would enroll.

The 7,041,000 people signed up by midnight did not count those who enrolled Monday in the 14 states that run their own insurance exchanges, nor those who may yet sign up under an extension for people who tried but couldn’t complete applications in time.

Representatives for Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield and QualChoice Health Insurance, which are offering plans on the insurance exchange in Arkansas, said enrollment increased leading up to the Monday deadline. They didn’t have a complete tally of the signups Tuesday.

The Arkansas Insurance Department reported last week that 22,667 Arkansans who did not qualify for Medicaid and enrolled through the exchange had active coverage as of March 24.

In addition, almost 150,000 people had been approved for coverage in the state’s expanded Medicaid program as of March 22.

Officials with the state Insurance Department and Department of Human Services said they didn’t have updated enrollment totals Tuesday.

Obama acknowledged problems Tuesday with the implementation of the law but pushed back at the notion that the law was fundamentally broken.

“No, the Affordable Care Act has not totally fixed our long-broken health-care system, but it has made the system a lot better,” he said. “The debate over repealing this law is over.”

The law has been under attack by Republicans, who are making dissatisfaction with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act a central part of their congressional campaigns for November’s elections.

Republican Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin called the enrollment figures “a Pyrrhic victory.” Republicans still plan to offer alternative legislation to replace the health law, he said.

Other Republicans questioned how many of those who signed up have actually paid premiums for coverage, and cited the continued rise in health-care costs and the cost to businesses.

“Every promise the president made has been broken: Health-care costs are rising, not falling,” said Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner. “Americans are losing the doctors and plans that they like.”

White House press secretary Jay Carney used Obama’s announcement to chide critics, including Boehner, who doubted that the enrollment goal would be met.

“I hope you’ll ask the speaker this: How will that effort to repeal the law ensure that Americans have access to the same quality health care that members of Congress have?” Carney said.

The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that there are 47 million Americans without insurance. Those who go without health insurance in coming months may be subject to tax penalties.

But the administration left the door open for people who had created online accounts or started applications for insurance and were unable to complete them because of technical problems they encountered on the federal website.

These consumers will have a limited but unspecified amount of extra time to finish their applications. People can request a “special enrollment period” by calling the federal marketplace at (800) 318-2596.

In its push to get people to sign up for coverage before the open enrollment period ended Monday night, the administration used social media, political-campaign tactics and a small army of volunteers who assisted people in shopping malls, clinics, churches and social-service agencies around the country.

There were more than 4.8 million visits to healthcare.gov on Monday, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a unit of the Department of Health and Human Services. That far exceeded the previous high of 1.8 million on Dec. 23.

Callers on Tuesday were greeted with a message saying: “Open enrollment for 2014 has ended, but don’t worry. You may still be able to get covered for this year. We know, despite your best efforts, that sometimes there were delays caused by heavy traffic to healthcare.gov or call centers or special situations that may have prevented you from finishing on time.

“If you’ve already called and left your telephone number for us to call you back, please know we are holding your place in line and will contact you soon to help you finish enrolling. You will still get coverage for 2014.”

The administration offered similar relief at the end of last year for people seeking coverage starting in January, and insurers said it took weeks to sort out the details.

With the enrollment period at an end, attention now will turn to the quality of coverage enrollees receive, their access to medical services, and insurer preparations for 2015.

Already, Indianapolis-based WellPoint Inc., the largest exchange insurer, has warned it may propose “double-digit plus” premium increases for the next enrollment period, which begins in November. Insurers must quickly assess the medical demands of their new customers before filing rates at the end of May.

While Obama on Tuesday quoted from letters he said he received from people helped by the law, Republicans responded in a round of their own quotes from people complaining about the rapidly rising rates.

“The band may be playing in the White House, but hearts aren’t light for Americans struggling to afford Obamacare’s higher costs,” said a release from the Senate Republican Communications Center.

Politically, the law’s problems have created headaches for some Democrats facing re-election in November, helping to wipe away the party’s prospects for taking control of the House and putting its Senate majority in jeopardy.

Geoff Garin, a Democratic pollster, said the politics behind the health law will shift as more Americans feel personally invested in the overhaul -because they’re getting care through the exchanges, staying on their parents’ plans or benefiting from patient protections.

Still, he said the law is likely to remain unpopular in states where Democrats are fighting many of their toughest races, including Louisiana, Arkansas and Alaska.

The Tea Party-aligned group Americans for Prosperity announced plans Tuesday to spend more than $500,000 on television assailing Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark. The ad, featuring a man lamenting how his health plan was canceled, is part of a $35 million anti-health-law campaign that the group has launched since September against Democrats including Pryor, Alaska Sen. Mark Begich and North Carolina Sen. Kay Hagan.

Americans for Prosperity’s president, Tim Phillips, said, “We’re first and foremost holding accountable for this law the senators who voted for it.”

White House officials have encouraged candidates from vulnerable states to emphasize their eagerness to fix parts of the law that aren’t working rather than shy away from the measure as a whole.

Obama said Tuesday that there will be more stumbles as the flaws in the health-care system are addressed.

“Change is hard. Fixing what’s broken is hard. Overcoming skepticism and fear of something new is hard,” Obama said. “But this law is doing what it’s supposed to do.”

He said opponents are criticizing “without offering any plausible alternative.”

Meanwhile, Democratic National Committee Chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida said the number of sign-ups offers Democrats an opportunity to paint Republicans as working to deny Americans something they already have.

“Now Republicans will be trying to take those benefits away from 7 million people,” she said.

Information for this article was contributed by Robert Pear and David S. Joachim of The New York Times; by Margaret Talev, Angela Greiling Keane, Kathleen Hunter, Roger Runningen and Alex Wayne of Bloomberg News; by Josh Lederman, Julie Pace and Jennifer Agiesta of The Associated Press; and by Andy Davis of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.