President Obama promoted his plan to make college more affordable while Republicans continued their criticism of Obamacare in their respective weekly internet and radio addresses.

President Barack Obama says higher education shouldn't be a luxury or a roll of the dice. He says it's an economic necessity and every American family should be able to afford it.

Continuing a theme from several stops he made in New York and Pennsylvania on Thursday and Friday, Obama promotes his plan to make college more affordable. He wants the government to rate colleges based on opportunity so students can pick schools with the best value. Obama says not everyone will agree. But he says the current path of skyrocketing tuition is unsustainable for students and for the economy.

In the Republican address, Governor Mike Pence of Indiana says businesses and workers are in "survival mode" because of Obama's health care law.

"As implementation of this law gets closer, we are learning more about the burdens it will place on hardworking Americans," said Pence who is in his first term. "In Indiana, the Affordable Care Act will raise the average cost of health insurance in the individual market by an unaffordable 72 percent."

Pence accused the Obama administration of "creating confusion" by delaying implementation of the employer mandate and suspending caps on out-of-pocket expenses."It's costing jobs, discouraging investment and making the future bleak for too many families,' said Pence.

He says Republican governors have solutions to improve health care without weighing down the economy. His cited his state's "Healthy Indiana Plan" a program that "offers the uninsured an affordable health care plan with savings accounts that they control."

Pence also cited President Ronald Reagan's view of the relationship between state and federal government. "The states that created the federal government, the federal government didn't create the states," Pence recalled Reagan as saying. "Our founders insisted that protecting the states' power to govern themselves was vital to limit the power of Washington and preserve freedom. They were right then, and as Republican governors are proving every day, they are even more right now."

The Associated Press contributed to this report

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