President Obama declared Thursday that the health care overhaul upheld last week by the Supreme Court is "here to stay," as he kicked off his first bus tour of the 2012 campaign. 

The president, speaking outdoors to a Maumee, Ohio, crowd with haystacks in the background, adamantly defended the law he spent the better part of his first two years in office passing. While Republican opponent Mitt Romney has vowed to repeal the law if elected, the president said the country will not "go back to the days" when insurance companies could deny coverage to the sick. 

"The law I passed is here to stay," Obama said. "Now is not the time to spend four more years fighting battles we fought two years ago. Now is the time to move forward." 

Romney, though, argues that the economy can't move forward until the health care law is repealed and replaced with something that contains far less regulation.