(CNSNews.com) - On a trip to Miami Thursday to defend and promote his signature healthcare law, President Obama admitted that the law isn't perfect. After urging Republicans to put aside partisanship, he suggested that one reason Republicans won't cooperate is because "a Democratic president named Barrack Obama passed the law."
Obama began his speech by agreeing that Obamacare is not perfect. Although the law was a "big step forward" -- "it's still just a first step," he said.
"It's like building a starter home or buying a starter home. It's a lot better than not having a home, but you hope that over time you make some improvements. And in fact, since we first signed the law, we've already taken a number of steps to improve it, and we can do even more.
"But only if we put aside all the political rhetoric, all the partisanship and just be honest about what's working, what needs fixing and how we fix it."
Flash back to March 2010, when congressional Democrats, aided by Obama's bully pulpit, passed Obamacare. But the only way they could pass it was by inserting the language into the shell of a Senate bill, then making deals and changing the rules to force it through -- without a single Republican vote.
Republicans were outraged, not only by the law's provisions, but also by the schemes used to pass it, and they have voted to repeal it, without success, dozens of times.
On Thursday, Obama urged Republicans to put aside partisanship and help him fix the law. Then he took a few swipes at Republicans:
"So what's the problem? Why is there still such a fuss?" he asked. "Well, a part of the problem is the fact that a Democratic president named Barrack Obama passed the law.
"And that is just the truth. I mean, I worked really, really hard to engage Republicans, took Republican ideas that originally they had praised, said 'lets work together to get this done.' And when they just refused to do anything, we said, 'All right, we are going to have to do it with Democrats,' and that's what we did.
"And early on, Republicans just decided to oppose it and then they tried to scare people with all kinds of predictions: that it would be a job killer; that it would force everyone into government-run insurance; that it would lead to rationing; that it would lead death panels; that it would bankrupt the federal government."
None of it happened, Obama said. "They just can't admit that a lot of good things have happened and the bad things they predicted didn't happen."
"So they just keep on repeating, we're going to repeal it, we're going to repeal it and we're going to replace it with something better, even though six-and-a-half years later, they haven't -- they still haven't showed us what it is that they would do that would be better.
"But -- and this is actually the main reason I'm here -- just because a lot of the Republican criticism has proven to be false and politically motivated, doesn't mean that there aren't some legitimate concerns about how the law is working now."
Obama's solutions include having every state expand its Medicaid program; he wants to provide more federal tax credits for more middle income families and young adults to help them buy insurance; and he wants to offer a public (government-run) plan to compete with insurance companies in areas where people do not have a choice of plans.
(A public option was rejected during the health care debate in 2009. "Whether you call it a public option, an opt-out, a trigger, or a co-op, the fact is all of these proposals put us on the path to government-run health care," said Republican House leader John Boehner at the time. "Forcing Americans off of their current health coverage and onto a government-run plan isn't the answer, but that's exactly what the Democrats' plan would do.")
On Thursday, Obama said now is not the time to "move backwards" on healthcare reform. "Now is the time to move forward. The problems that may have arisen from the Affordable Care Act is not because government is too involved in the process. The problem is that we have not reached everybody and pulled them in."
The massive, complicated and expensive law has added ten percent of the population to the health insurance rolls. Another ten percent remain uninsured, despite the government requirement that everyone must buy health insurance or pay a penalty.