President Obama told a group of corporate leaders on Thursday that his healthcare overhaul would create more exports for U.S. companies, continuing his economic push in the face of the broader Washington budget debate.
Addressing his Export Council, Obama didn’t directly mention a standoff with Republicans over avoiding a government shutdown and increasing the debt limit — before reporters left the room — but touted his administration’s economic progress.
Amid GOP efforts to defund Obamacare, the president defended his signature legislative achievement.
“The cost of healthcare is now growing at the slowest rate in 50 years,” Obama said Thursday. “If the current trends hold … we’re going to see a continuing slowing of healthcare costs. That’s going to boost our exports.”
The White House is seeking to frame the overlapping debt-ceiling and government-funding debates in economic terms, arguing that the GOP will hurt American families still recovering from the Great Recession.
“It turns out actually a lot of what we've done is starting to bear real fruit,” the president insisted about his healthcare overhaul.
Republicans on Thursday pressed ahead with their campaign to gut the law.
“It is a train wreck; it has to go,” Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, told reporters Thursday morning.
Obama’s remarks to his Export Council are the latest in a series of economic events this week.
He addressed the Business Roundtable on Wednesday and will travel to a Kansas City Ford plant Friday to tout his administration’s bailout of the auto industry.
Addressing the group of business leaders Thursday, Obama said their work had helped spur a rebounding economy.
“This is not a bunch of show horses here,” he joked. “These are work horses."
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