Earlier this week we learned that former Obama Administration official Elizabeth Warren is calling for a repeal of one of Obamacare’s many taxes, and today The Hill is reporting that several Democrats in Congress are starting to regret President Obama’s signature health care law.
First there’s Representative Brad Miller (D-NC), who is retiring at the end of this session of Congress:
“I think we would all have been better off — President Obama politically, Democrats in Congress politically, and the nation would have been better off — if we had dealt first with the financial system and the other related economic issues and then come back to healthcare.”
Miller, who voted for the law, said the administration wasted time and political capital on healthcare reform, resulting in lingering economic problems that will continue to plague Obama’s reelection chances in 2012.
Then there’s Representative Dennis Cardoza (D-CA), who is also planning to retire this year:
Rep. Dennis Cardoza (D-Calif.) also criticized his party’s handling of the issue, and said he repeatedly called on his leaders to figure out how they were going to pay for the bill, and then figure out what they could afford.
[Cardoza] said he thought the bill should have been done “in digestible pieces that the American public could understand and that we could implement.”
Miller and Cardoza have the luxury to speak freely because, as retiring Members of Congress, they have little to lose in Monday morning quarterbacking their own party’s policies.
The Obamacare issue is back in the limelight for more than one reason. In June, the Supreme Court is expected to rule on the law’s constitutionality, and as the election heats up, voters will likely be re-introduced to the Obamacare debate all over again.
Where do Americans stand now? A new poll from Quinnipiac University shows by a 49 – 38 percent margin, they say the Supreme Court should overturn the law.
So this bit of “buyers’ remorse,” as The Hill describes it, shouldn’t be all that surprising. But those who are really paying the price are the American people and businesses who have to shoulder the costs of the law — and that’s why it should be repealed.