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Cue the birthday song: The federal Affordable Care Act turned 5 this week.

It seems like only yesterday that Congress gave birth to the expansive health care reform law following many hours of difficult labor. After a few awkward first steps, Obamacare found solid footing, and since then has charted a long list of successes in coverage, affordability, cost containment, health care delivery, Medicare and Medicaid improvements and much more.

The White House Domestic Policy Council detailed the ACA’s impact in a fifth-anniversary . Some of the most compelling highlights include:

• Since the beginning of the law’s first open enrollment period in October 2013, about 21 million Americans have gained health care coverage, either through state exchanges or Medicaid, significantly exceeding expectations. This included 2.3 million individuals between the ages of 19 and 25 newly permitted to stay on their parent’s health care plan under the ACA. As of this month, those new enrollees have cut the national uninsured rate to just over 12 percent — and falling: Enrollment is currently open for individuals who learn while filing taxes that they face a fine if not enrolled. This is the lowest uninsured rate ever recorded and less than half the rate in 1963, when measurements began, according to the White House.

• Hawaii Health Connector, this state’s often-beleaguered exchange, has already blown past its fiscal-year goal of signing up 30,000 new individuals; new CEO Jeff Kissell told Civil Beat this week the number had climbed to 32,500. This, despite computer troubles at the beginning of open enrollment last fall and a budget year shortfall initially estimated at $2.5 million, but now declining. Just a year ago, only about 5,000 people had signed up on the Connector. After major embarrassing headaches with past leadership, the exchange finally seems to be firing on all cylinders.

• The law’s policy reforms have been just as significant. As many as 129 million individuals nationwide with pre-existing conditions have been protected from being denied coverage. Of those, about 17 million are children. Likewise, lifetime caps on coverage have been largely eliminated. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates that consumers have saved about $9 billion over the law’s requirement that insurers spend at least 80 percent of every premium dollar on care. States are also empowered by the law to review and negotiate premium increases.

• The cost of health care goods and services since the ACA became law has grown at an annual rate of 1.6 percent, also the lowest in 50 years. Over the past 12 months, it’s slowed further to 1.2 percent. “Underlying growth in health care prices, premiums and per-enrollee spending — the costs that matter to families — remains exceptionally slow, thanks in part to the law’s reforms,” says a new report from the chairman and senior economist of the Council of Economic Advisors.

The relentlessly accumulating positive metrics have mostly been ignored by a Congress that has held more than 50 unsuccessful votes to repeal the law. Republican critics continue to label it federal government overreach and argue that it was passed dishonestly, pointing to President Obama’s promise that, “If you like the plan you have, you can keep it. If you like the doctor you have, you can keep your doctor, too.”

For some, that turned out not to be the case, as the law mandated changes to many low-cost plans. Critics also haven’t forgotten the disastrous 2013 roll out of the ACA website.

But in the face of the ACA’s winning trajectory, criticisms seem to have given way to simple resentment.

Republican U.S. Sen. John Barrasso , “It’s time for the White House to stop celebrating” the law’s success.

GOP presidential hopefuls continue to jab at the ACA, most recently with newly announced candidate Sen. Ted Cruz saying he envisions himself “signing legislation repealing every word of Obamacare.” Despite many promises they’d do so, party leaders have yet to put forth an alternative.

They may not have to. A Supreme Court ruling on a challenge to a key ACA funding mechanism being used by health care exchanges nationwide is expected in June; if the court finds in favor of the plaintiffs, it would throw the health care markets behind the exchanges into chaos and threaten the fiscal integrity of the ACA, potentially fatally.

Court watchers say the case is too close to call, with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy likely supplying the deciding votes, one way or the other.

In the meantime, however, President Obama took rightful pride this week in .

“The Affordable Care Act has been the subject of more scrutiny, more rumor, more attempts to dismantle and undermine it than just about any law in recent history,” he said. “But five years later, it is succeeding – in fact, it’s working better than even many of its supporters expected.  It’s time to embrace reality.”