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Speaking from the Rose Garden behind a presumably-empty White House, President Obama on Tuesday afternoon highlighted the launch of the Obamacare insurance exchanges — despite the "Republican shutdown." "The irony that the House Republicans will have to contend with," he said, "is they've shut down whole parts of government, but the Affordable Care Act is still open for business."

The speech, one in a recent series of attempts by Obama to offer his position on the on-going budget dispute, was one of the most pointed against his political opponents. He began by tying the shutdown to opposition to his health care reform.

One faction, of one branch of government shut down major parts of the government all because they didn't like one law. This republican shutdown did not need to happen. But I want every American to understand why it did happen. Republicans in the House of Representatives refused to fund the government unless we defunded or dismantled the Affordable Care Act. They've shut down the federal government to deny health insurance to millions of Americans. In other words, they demanded ransom just for doing their job.

The president, noting glitches in the roll-out of Healthcare.gov, the site allowing sign-ups into the government health exchanges, compared those problems to the launch of Apple's iOS 7. "I don't remember anybody suggesting that Apple stop selling iPhones or iPads or threaten to shut down the company." (His Secretary of Health and Human Services used this argument yesterday.)