Obama Defends Healthcare 'Legacy'

President Barack Obama has defended his healthcare reform law, known as Obamacare, describing it as a legacy to be proud of.
In a TV interview, Obama accepted that problems with the website had affected his popularity, but said every president went through rough times.
Obamacare was intended to extend health insurance coverage to some of the estimated 15% of Americans who lack it, reports the BBC.
The government has set a 30 November deadline to overhaul the website.
Obama said his priority now was to make sure the website worked.
As the deadline approached, the controversial HealthCare.gov site was taken down on Friday night for an 11-hour period for maintenance and upgrades to the software and hardware systems. It was due to go back online at 0800 EST (1300 GMT) on Saturday.
In an interview with ABC News, President Obama said he still believed his Affordable Care Act would make good on his manifesto promise to deliver affordable health care to Americans.
"I continue to believe and [I'm] absolutely convinced that, at the end of the day, people are going to look back at the work we've done to make sure that in this country you don't go bankrupt when you get sick, that families have that security," said President Obama.
"That is going be a legacy I am extraordinarily proud of."
Obamacare has come under constant fire from Republican party critics and many private health providers, who say it is too expensive and an unwarranted intrusion into the affairs of private businesses and individuals.
But opposition intensified after a succession of technical glitches accompanied the launch of HealthCare.gov in October.
Only 27,000 people were able to use the website to sign up in the first month, and there is still a backlog of Americans attempting to meet the deadline of 23 December to be guaranteed cover from 1 January 2014.
According to an ABC News-Washington Post poll released last week, the president's job approval rating fell to 42%, down 13 percentage points this year and 6 points in the past month.
But Obama said he was used to difficult periods in his presidency.
"The good thing about when you're down is that usually you got nowhere to go but up," he said.
The problems with the website have forced Obama to apologise for "fumbling the ball" by not delivering a more successful launch, while Republicans have accused the president of breaking his promises.
Seated alongside his wife Michelle, Obama referred to criticism that he had appeared not to be aware of the extent of problems with the website, which his administration has promised to deal with by the end of November.