Barack Obama, Obamacare | featured news

Romney's latest problem with conservatives flowed from a spokeswoman's reflections this week on the benefits of the Massachusetts health care law. That Romney-proposed law remains a touchy topic, since it was a model for President Barack Obama's health care overhaul — which Romney now condemns. In criticizing an outside group's ad linking Romney to the cancer death of a laid-off steelworker's wife, Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul told Fox News, "If people had been in Massachusetts under Gov. Romney's health care plan, they would have had health care."

President Obama is now happy to call it "Obamacare." Once a term of derision used mostly by Republicans who have vowed to repeal the new health care law, Obama deployed it in both of his Colorado appearances on Wednesday. "The Affordable Care Act -- also known as Obamacare," Obama said to applause from backers at the University of Denver.

"I actually like the name," he added. "Because I do care -- that's why we fought so hard to make it happen."

Days before President Obama's signature healthcare law goes in front of the Supreme Court, GOP front-runner Mitt Romney vowed to repeal and replace the law, speaking to a supportive crowd in a suburb of New Orleans.

About 2.5 million young people have received health insurance coverage as a result of health care reform measures that President Barack Obama signed into law last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Wednesday. The Obama administration trumpeted the figure as a sign that the controversial legislation is succeeding.

Alaska Senate candidate Joe Miller says his family benefited from Medicaid and a state-run health care program for low-income children and pregnant women.Miller previously acknowledged receiving federal farm subsidies for land he owned in Kansas in the 1990s, as well as low-income hunting and fishing licenses for him and his wife in Alaska.As a conservative candidate, he's criticized certain entitlement programs. Sitting Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who's running for re-election as a write-in candidate against him, called Miller a hypocrite.