Contrite White House Spurns Health Law's Critics

BOSTON - President Obama on Wednesday offered an impassioned defense of his Affordable Care Act, promising to fix the malfunctioning health care website but pledging to 'grind it out' over the weeks and months ahead to prove the law's Republican critics wrong.

Speaking at Faneuil Hall, where Mitt Romney, his onetime rival for the White House, signed into law a similar health care program for Massachusetts, the president accused his opponents of trying to undermine the national law. But he said the experience in the Bay State gives him hope.

'I'm confident that these marketplaces will work because Massachusetts has shown that the model works,' Mr. Obama said. 'Yeah, it's hard. But it's worth it. It is the right thing to do. We are going to keep moving forward.'

The president acknowledged problems with the online portal for insurance, saying that he takes 'full responsibility for making sure it gets fixed A.S.A.P. We are working overtime to improve it every day.″

But he made clear that he would not sit by while his Republican adversaries try to turn a website's problems into political ammunition with the aim of overturning the entire health care law.

'We are going to see this through,' Mr. Obama vowed, pounding his fist on the podium as the audience roared with approval.

Mr. Obama for the first time admitted that some people who have had what he called 'substandard' insurance plans may have to choose another one now that the Affordable Care Act has gone into effect. But he accused lawmakers in Washington of distorting that fact by failing to mention that the new plans will be more comprehensive, often with cheaper premiums.

'If you leave that stuff out, you are being grossly misleading, to say the least,' Mr. Obama said.

The president repeatedly invoked Mr. Romney's name as evidence of the bipartisan spirit that led to the passage and implementation of the health care law in Massachusetts. He said Mr. Romney 'did the right thing on health care' in the state.

But Mr. Romney did not return the favor, issuing a statement hours before the president's speech that repeated his longstanding criticism of the national health care law.

'Nothing has changed my view that a plan crafted to fit the unique circumstances of a single state should not be grafted onto the entire country,' Mr. Romney said. 'Health reform is best crafted by states with bipartisan support and input from its employers, as we did, without raising taxes, and by carefully phasing it in to avoid the type of disruptions we are seeing nationally.'

During the 2012 campaign, Mr. Obama's aides often took pleasure in noting that the president's health care plan was closely modeled after Mr. Romney's effort - even as the Republican candidate became a frequent critic of the national version. The trip to Boston on Wednesday was designed to undermine Republican criticism in Congress by highlighting the health care law's Republican roots.

But the speech was unlikely to change many minds on Capitol Hill, where criticism of the president's health law has become an article of faith regardless of who came up with the idea first.

White House aides said they did not ask Mr. Romney to attend the speech.