President Barack Obama on Tuesday attacked House Republicans for forcing a government shutdown, while defending the “glitches” in the launch of the individual health care marketplaces that also began Tuesday.
“As long as I am president, I will not give in to reckless demands by some in the Republican Party to deny affordable health insurance to millions of hard-working Americans,” Obama said in a Rose Garden statement.
“The irony that the House Republicans have to contend with is they’ve shut down a whole bunch of parts of the government, but the Affordable Care Act is still open for business,” he said in his first public speech since the shutdown began at midnight.
(Also: POLITICO's guide to the Affordable Care Act)
“Republicans in Congress chose to shut down the federal government,” he said. “Let me be more specific: one faction of one party in one house of Congress in one branch of government shut down major parts of the government. All because they didn’t like one law. This Republican shutdown did not have to happen.”
Obama echoed remarks he made Monday, again blaming Republicans for shutting down the government “over an ideological crusade … they demanded ransom just for doing their job.”
While “we may not know the full impact of this Republican shutdown for some time,” the president said it’s likely it will hurt the economy, just as the 1995-96 shutdown hurt an economy that was in better condition.
(POLITICO’s full Obamacare coverage)
Obama made his statement after holding an Oval Office meeting with a dozen Americans who will be able to sign up for insurance through the Affordable Care Act’s individual exchanges.
He acknowledged that there have been some problems with the registrations, but said they came as a result of high levels of demand.
“Like every new law, every new product roll out, there are going to be some glitches in the sign up process along the way that we will fix. I’ve been saying this from the start,” he said, adding that more than 1 million people visited the Obamacare website before 7 a.m.
To respond to the demand, “we’re going to be speeding things up in the next few hours to handle all of this demand that exceeds anything that we had expected,” Obama said, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius also joining him in the Rose Garden.
(WATCH: Boehner calls Obamacare “a trainwreck”)
It’s normal for any new rollout to come with a few bumps, he continued. “Consider that just a couple of weeks ago, Apple rolled out a new mobile operating system, and within days, they found a glitch, so they fixed it.
”I don’t remember anybody suggesting Apple should stop selling iPhones or iPads or threatening to shut down the company if they didn’t,” he said. “That’s not how we do things in America. We don’t actively root for failure. We get to work, we make things happen, we make them better, we keep going.”
Obama also issued a warning to Republicans about the next crisis: the fight to raise the debt ceiling.
“I will not negotiate over Congress’ responsibility to pay bills it’s already racked up,” he said, repeating the White House’s well-established position. “I’m not going to allow anybody to drag the good name of the United States of America through the mud just to refight a settled election or extract ideological demands. Nobody gets to hurt our economy and millions of hardworking families over a law you don’t like.”
There is legislation that Obama supports but that House Republicans haven’t passed, he said, but he isn’t making similar demands. “I’m not out there saying … I’m going to let America default unless Congress does something that they don’t want to do. That’s not how adults operate. Certainly, that’s not how our government should operate.”
Obama didn’t respond to reporters’ shouted questions after his speech, including one about how he could resolve the situation without negotiating.
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