Obama: Health Law ‘Here to Stay’

President Obama said his healthcare law is here to stay during a sweltering campaign stop in swing-state Ohio today.

Obama touted the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold his signature healthcare reform legislation to cheers from a crowd of his supporters.

“The law I passed is here to stay,” he told an audience composed largely of Ohio automobile manufacturing workers.

Obama’s comments are the closest he’s come to “spiking the football” on the Supreme Court’s decision, which surprised many observers. Chief Justice John Roberts joined the court’s liberal justices in ruling the healthcare mandate is constitutional because it is a tax. It’s the first time Obama has mentioned the ruling on the campaign trail.

The president, wearing a short-sleeved shirt and sweating profusely, also touted his support of the auto bailout and his administration’s trade suit against China over auto tariffs as he began a two-day campaign bus trip through Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Both states are key to Obama’s reelection effort, and Ohio may be even more important to Republican Mitt Romney. No Republican presidential candidate has ever been elected president without winning Ohio, and polls show a tight race.

Obama’s campaign thinks his support for the auto industry will play well in Ohio, and he emphasized in his remarks Thursday the new trade case against China.He also criticized Romney’s opposition to the bailout of General Motors and Chrysler.

“Gov. Romney said we just let Detroit go bankrupt,” Obama said, referring to the title of an op-ed Romney wrote in 2008. “I refused to turn my back on communities like this one.”

Much of Obama’s speech was designed to appeal to blue-collar voters, and the president slammed Romney for wanting to give “tax breaks” to wealthy Americans and companies. “I sure don’t agree with his plan to keep giving tax breaks to companies sending jobs overseas,” he said to a loud round of applause.

He went on to refer to a recent report charging that Romney’s private equity firm invested in companies that specialized in outsourcing American jobs overseas. Romney’s campaign has criticized The Washington Post report as inaccurate.

“I want the goods shipped around the world stamped ‘Made in America,’ ” Obama said.

Read more at THE HILL.

{Matzav.com Newscenter}