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Vice President Mike Pence on Wednesday reiterated a promise to repeal former President Barack Obama's health care reforms by the end of the summer despite uncertainty over whether a Republican bill has enough votes to pass the Senate.

In a speech delivered at a Cleveland manufacturing facility, Pence defended the bill, saying its measures to expand health savings accounts and create tax credits would make insurance more affordable. He said the legislation would cut costs for businesses and give states flexibility to tailor Medicaid programs to local needs.

"(President Donald Trump) believes in state-based solutions, not one-size-fits-all Washington answers," Pence said.

After Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell abandoned plans to bring the bill to a vote this week, fresh GOP critics came forward to attack the bill, with the number of Republican senators publicly complaining about it hitting double digits.

But despite strong party opposition, Pence said the Trump administration is continuing to make "great progress every single day."

Pence's speech came a day after Ohio U.S. Sen. Rob Portman declared his opposition to the bill, catching the senator in the crosshairs of a high-stakes intraparty fight.

Portman is among Republican senators facing intense pressure back home, targeted by demonstrators, advertisement campaigns and a verbal onslaught from Gov. John Kasich, who has spearheaded GOP criticism of the Senate bill.

Pence didn't criticize Portman. Instead, Pence took aim at Democrats, saying Obama's health reforms had driven up insurance premiums and deductibles and blaming them for obstructing health care reform.

"Obamacare has failed, and Obamacare must go," Pence said. "You'd have to be a politician blinded by partisanship to believe otherwise. But, sadly, Congress is full of them."

Democrats have roundly criticized the Republican plan to scrap the Obama health care law. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has said, "Surely we can do better than what the Republican health care bill promises."

In a nod to Ohio's drug overdose problems, Pence singled out opioids in his speech Wednesday, saying the bill would provide new resources to help fight mounting death tolls. Portman has expressed concerns about the impact of slashed Medicaid funding on Ohio's ability to battle the epidemic.

Pence, toward the end of his speech, urged his audience of about 200 people to contact their representatives to put pressure on them to roll back Obama's health care law.

Steven Simons, a 57-year-old paint worker at the workshop where Pence made his speech, said he had faith in the Trump administration's ability to repeal the Democratic former president's health care reforms.

"I know they ain't got it right yet, but they will get it right," Simons said.

Simons said he's covered by employer health insurance and his coverage was reduced under Obama.

Pence also spoke about cutting taxes and bringing manufacturing jobs from overseas.

Earlier in the day, Pence participated in a round-table discussion with business leaders and toured the facility, Tendon Manufacturing, and spoke with workers who demonstrated a laser metal cutter and sheet metal fabricators.

Pence was on his fourth visit to Ohio since taking office in January.

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Pence: Trump will repeal Obama's health law by summer's end - ABC News

Former US president Barack Obama (2nd L), his wife Michelle (3rd L) and his daughters Sasha (front C) and Malia (2nd R) go rafting at Bongkasa Village in Badung on Bali island on June 26, 2017.

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Former President Barack Obama and his family wrapped up their five-day vacation on Indonesia's resort island of Bali and headed to the historic city of Yogyakarta on Wednesday during a nostalgic trip to the country where Obama lived for several years as a child.

Obama, his wife Michele and daughters Malia and Sasha drove to a luxury hotel in downtown Yogyakarta after arriving on a private jet at the city's military airport, said Indonesian air force base commander Air Vice Marshal Novyan Samyoga.

Samyoga was among local officials who greeted the Obamas at the tarmac. He said the family looked relaxed and was smiling in response to onlookers who greeted them with cheers.

He said that Secret Service agents did not have special requests for the Obamas' activities on the main Java island, but about 650 Indonesian security forces were deployed to secure the family in Yogyakarta, an ancient city where Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, spent years on her anthropological research.

Obama moved to Indonesia in 1967 at age 6 after his divorced mother remarried an Indonesian man. She stayed on after the marriage broke up, working as an anthropologist and development aid worker, but Obama returned to Hawaii when he was 10 to live with his grandparents.

Obama and his family were seen on a river rafting as they vacationed in Bali on Monday.

Local media reported that they also visited several tourist attractions, including a museum and rice terraces in Ubud, an arts and culture center amid hills and rice paddies.

In Yogjakarta, the Obamas are planning to visit Borobudur, the 9th century Buddhist temple, as well as the Hindu temple of Prambanan during their two-day holiday, Samyoga said.

President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo has invited the Obamas to visit the Bogor Palace in West Java during their nine-day trip in Indonesia.

Obama is also scheduled to speak at an Indonesian Diaspora Congress in Jakarta on July 1.

2017 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Obama family moves from Bali to Java on Indonesia vacation - CBS News

There has been much ado about the Obamas luxe vacations since the former president left office in January. Some of the attention has been tropical trip-envy at the Obamas , toes in the sand, living their best post-Washington lives. But, of course, theres also been sensational coverage and criticism: The latest shot comes from a cleverly crafted Fox News hit piece claiming the Obamas are under fire from the left (because Fox News is famous for giving voice to the left) for their jaunts to Bali, Hawaii, Palm Springs, and Richard Bransons Necker Island. Note that the left, according to Fox Newss story, equates to exactly two sources: Pat Caddell, a strategist for former President Carter, and a rather far left socialist.

Obama is not as wealthy or as conservative as Trump, George W. Bush, or George H.W. Bush, but he enjoys what used to be called the lifestyle of the rich and famous, quipped Dr. David Michael Smith of the Houston Socialist Movement.

Smith is actually right about one thing: Obama is not as wealthy as Trump, and therein lies the utter hypocrisy of criticizing his post-presidential vacations. Its pretty rich (no pun intended) to be obsessing over the whereabouts of private citizen Obama when the sitting president of the United States is the proud owner of a gilded penthouse on Fifth Avenue; spent the winter a bona fide snowbird, jetting to Mar-a-Lago at a cost of millions of dollars to taxpayers; and golfed more in his first three months in office than presidents Obama, Clinton, or George W. Bush. If anyones fancy (and tacky, but thats not the point here), its Donald Trump. It raises the question: Why is luxury okay for President Trump but not President Obama?

Trump has all but equated wealth and economic success with virtue and qualification to lead, both in his own case and in appointing a slew of ber-wealthy former Wall Street executives to his cabinet. As he said at his recent rally: In those particular positions, I just dont want a poor person.

Despite being a (supposed) billionaire real-estate developerwho marketed himself a hero of the working class during his campaignTrump is poised to strip medical benefits from an estimated 22 million Americans by 2026 through the Senate health-care bill, including some of the most vulnerable. And yet, Caddell tells Fox News that the populist Bernie Sanders wing of the Democratic party is uneasy about the Obamas vacations? Long before he was rafting in Bali, and in spite of the imperfections of the Affordable Care Act, Obama sought to give coverage to the most needy among us. It seems hes not the elitist politician the world should be worried about.

Admittedly, there is a certain sense of abandonment, however irrational, when it comes to the Democratic party and the Obamas. Theres a sort of knife-twisting twinge watching mom and dad kitesurfing as a dystopian hell-scape seems to engulf Washington. As John Oliver has joked: Im glad [Obamas] having a nice timeAmerica is on fire. But the truth is that the Obamas didnt abandon America; it was the other way around. In Obamas wake, the country elected his diametric opposite, someone who questioned the legitimacy of his citizenship and whose primary strategy for governing is to sign executive orders that repeal his policies one by one. For two terms, Obama battled an obstructionist Congress that attempted to block all his legislative efforts and successfully snubbed his final Supreme Court pick. Can he really be blamed for fleeing to Necker Island instead of hanging out in the swamp? Did we stand in W.s way when he retreated to Crawford, Texas, to become the next Bob Ross?

Its understandable that Democrats cant let go of Obama; hes the presidential version of the one that got away, because the party is, frankly, in the throes of a losing streak and in desperate need of an energetic, unifying new leader (glimmers of hope come from senators Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, and Sanders). Or perhaps, as Obama has suggested, the fate of the party rests in the grassroots movement that has risen up after the election, vowing to fight for progressive values and reclaiming the Democrats mantle of the populist party.

And while its splashier to cover his endless summer, Obama has, in fact, been working, launching his eponymous foundation, mentoring young men of color through his My Brothers Keeper Initiative, donating $2 million to Chicago programs that provide summer jobs for young people, and giving a speech about public service in Canada.

Vacays notwithstanding, thats more than current First Lady Melania Trump has done since the inauguration (whatever happened to combating cyberbullying?). Obama has become something of a Democratic Batman, watching from afar and popping up when things get really dire: As the latest health-care debate heated up, the former president took to Facebook to condemn the embattled Senate bill. In the meantime, hes Bruce Wayne, and his supporters have to accept that and move on. He has.

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We Elected a Guy Who Owns a Gold ApartmentAre We Really Criticizing the Obamas' Vacations? - Vogue.com

"The reason that President Obama did NOTHING about Russia after being notified by the CIA of meddling is that he expected Clinton would win ... and did not want to 'rock the boat.' He didn't 'choke,' he colluded or obstructed, and it did the Dems and Crooked Hillary no good," Trump wrote.

"The real story is that President Obama did NOTHING after being informed in August about Russian meddling. With 4 months looking at Russia ... under a magnifying glass, they have zero 'tapes' of T people colluding. There is no collusion & no obstruction. I should be given apology!" he wrote on Twitter.

It was unclear who Trump was demanding an apology from or who he was accusing Obama of colluding with.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said on Monday that the Obama administration's actions on Russia raise questions about the former president's motivations.

"They have been very clear, they've been playing this card about blaming Trump and Russia," Spicer said during an off-camera briefing at the White House. "And yet at the same time, they were the ones who, according to this report, knew about it and didn't take any action."

"So the question is, if they didn't take any action, does that make them complicit? I think there are a lot of questions that need to get answered about who knew what and when," Spicer said.

Trump has often expressed deep frustration over accusations that individuals in his orbit colluded with Russia during the election and assertions that he may have tried to personally influence the FBI's probe into the matter.

The Post said the Obama administration felt its hands were tied when Russian hacking first came to light because it did not want to be accused of interfering in an already turbulent campaign. At the time, Trump was claiming publicly that the election was rigged against him.

In a tweet Saturday, Trump wrote: "Since the Obama Administration was told way before the 2016 Election that the Russians were meddling, why no action? Focus on them, not T!"

Trump also criticized Obama in an interview that was broadcast on "Fox and Friends" on Sunday.

"It's an amazing thing. To me -- in other words, the question is, if he had the information, why didn't he do something about it?" Trump said, apparently seizing on a quote in the Post report that indicated that many Obama administration officials now believe that their own response to Russian hacking was insufficient.

"I feel like we sort of choked," one former senior Obama aide told the Post, referring to the administration's decision to impose sanctions and insert cyberweapons inside Russia's critical infrastructure that could be activated at a future point rather than launch more extreme retaliatory measures.

Trump's criticism of Obama comes as questions remain about whether the White House intends to take any muscular action to punish the Kremlin or to shore up US electoral defenses.

But now Trump seems to be finally acknowledging that Russia did play a role in the election.

Last week, White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters that he had not had a chance to sit down with the President to ask him whether he agreed with his intelligence agencies that Russia did actually interfere in the election. Pushed on Friday, Spicer said that Trump stood by a comment in January this year when he said: "I think it was Russia." Spicer also said Trump was concerned about election interference by "any actor."

A former Obama White House official called the Trump administration's attacks "a transparent effort to distract from the terrible impact of their ACA repeal bill."

"This situation was taken extremely seriously," the official added, defending Obama's decision to raise the issue directly with President Putin, direct a comprehensive intelligence review, shut down two Russian compounds, sanction nine Russian entities and individuals, and eject 35 Russian diplomats from the country.

CNN's Stephen Collinson and Kevin Liptak contributed to this report.

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Trump demands apology, accuses Obama of having 'colluded ...

Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign chairman, John Podesta, went to Capitol Hill on Tuesday for a closed-door hearing with the House Intelligence Committee investigating Russian interference in the election.

Speaking to reporters after the hearing, Podesta said he was asked "to come forward to give, to the best of my knowledge, what I knew about [the election interference] and I was happy to cooperate with the committee." He declined to discuss specifics from the session.

Podesta, a former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton and counselor to President Barack Obama, was caught up in the cyberattacks that took place at the end of the presidential campaign.

His emails were hacked and posted online last fall by WikiLeaks, revealing the inner workings of Clinton's campaign and political operation. The hack led to weeks of unflattering headlines for the campaign ahead of Election Day.

Asked about the Obama administration's response to the Russian efforts to influence the election, Podesta said the administration was "dealing with unprecedented weaponization of fruits of Russian cyberactivity."

"I think they were trying to make the best judgments they could on behalf of the American people," he said of the Obama team.

U.S. intelligence agencies have accused Russia of being behind the hack on Podesta and other hacking during the election.

Podesta's comments come as President Trump has increasingly criticized Obama's response to the Russian efforts to influence the election. After the Washington Post reported on the Obama administration's internal deliberations about how to respond evidence of Russia meddling, Trump said in a Fox News interview that Obama "did nothing" about Russia.

The Obama administration's response to the Russian meddling has come under some criticism. The administration repeatedly warned Russia against interfering in the election and made resources available to protect state election systems ahead of Election Day in 2016.

In December, after the election, Obama issued new sanctions against Russia and ejected alleged Russian operatives from the country.

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Clinton's former campaign chair defends Obama response to Russian hacking - ABC News