President Barack Obama is making every effort to bring attention to the advantages of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.

“This is the way the law was designed to work. But since everyone’s saying how it’s not going to happen, I think it’s important for us to recognize and acknowledge that this is working the way it’s supposed to,” Obama said in California on Friday, according to NBCNews.com. “In states that are working hard to implement this law properly, it’s working for people — for middle-class families, for consumers.”

President Obama’s speech comes at a crucial time, as new features to Obamacare will be implemented in 2013. HealthCare.gov highlights some of these new features, including open enrollment in the health insurance marketplace starting on October 1, 2013.

HealthCare.gov says that individuals and small businesses can purchase “affordable and qualified” health care plans in this “transparent” and “competitive” health insurance marketplace.

Effective January 1, 2013, changes were also made to the Affordable Health Care act to improve preventive health coverage by offering new funding to state Medicaid programs that decide to cover preventative services for patients at little or no cost. On the same date, the law also expanded the authority to bundle payments.

President Obama’s message on health care isn’t always falling on receptive ears, as 54 percent of Americans oppose his signature domestic policy accomplishment, according to a CNN poll released at the end of May. Only 43 percent of Americans support Obamacare. However, the CNN poll also revealed the more than 25 percent of those who oppose the Affordable Care Act admit they don’t support the law because it doesn’t go far enough to improve the health care situation in the United States.

President Obama has a lot of work to do if he wants to sell the law to the 54 percent of Americans who oppose it. Plus, he has to constantly deal with Republican criticism of Obamacare. For example, Senator Lindsey Graham said that getting rid of Obamacare would be a better way of finding $1.2 trillion in savings over the next decade than cutting from the military and other programs.

Is Obamacare “working the way it’s supposed to?” Do you support Obamacare? Is the Republican criticism of Obamacare spot on or way off? Share your thoughts in the comments section.