Obama, Republicans mark 5th year of health care law

Five years later, the debate over President Obama's health care law — aka Obamacare — remains as contentious as ever.

Obama and Republican critics are marking Monday's fifth anniversary of the law's passage with very contrasting views of its impact.

For Obama, it's about 16 million more Americans who now have health insurance, and an improving economy; for Republicans, it's about higher premiums and canceled policies.

"The Affordable Care Act has been the subject of more scrutiny, more rumor, more attempts to dismantle and undermine it than just about any law in recent history," Obama said in a weekend statement. "But five years later, it is succeeding — in fact, it's working better than even many of its supporters expected."

The president signed the law on March 23, 2010.

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Obama said the 16 million increase has cut the number of uninsured people by nearly a third. He said people with pre-existing conditions can now get insurance, and that gender differences in costs are being eliminated.

While critics cited rising premium costs, Obama said that, last year, "the growth in health care premium costs for businesses matched its lowest level on record." He also said that "health care prices have grown at their slowest rate in nearly 50 years since this law was passed," helping reduce budget deficits.

"Five years ago, we declared that in America, quality, affordable health care is not a privilege, it is a right," Obama said. "And I'll never stop working to protect that right for those who already have it, and extend it to those who don't."

Republicans, meanwhile, focused on higher costs and bureaucratic problems with implementation of the law.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said that "Obamacare has been one rolling disaster after another" since the president signed it into law in 2010.

"It raided Medicare to finance more government spending; it led to canceled health plans for many who'd been told they'd be able to keep what they had and liked; and now it's causing even more headaches at tax time," McConnell said. "Fewer choices, higher costs, increased taxes, broken promises — and it's still not working like the president said it would."

McConnell and other Republicans said the law involves too much government control, and that the market is a better source of overhaul for the health care system.

"Republicans think it's better to give families and states the freedom to choose what's right for them, rather than trying to impose costly mandates from Washington," McConnell said.