Leading Democrats have criticized the president's implementation of ObamaCare:
- The Democrats' majority leader, Sen. Harry Reid, said last week that he agreed with Democrat Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, a Democrat architect of the law, who said about the ObamaCare implementation, "I just see a huge train wreck coming down."
- Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden expressed concern about what's going to happen with young people if their insurance premiums shoot up.
- Maryland Sen. Ben Cardin told White House officials that he was concerned about big rate increases being sought by the largest health insurer in his state.
- New Hampshire Sen Jeanne Shaheen, Democrat of New Hampshire complained, "We are hearing from a lot of small businesses in New Hampshire that do not know how to comply with the law."
The criticism must have hit home because President Obama felt compelled to respond. In his most recent press conference he dismissed the criticism implying the Democrats' are complaining about nothing more than "glitches and bumps."
As Obama co-opted Mother's Day in his latest campaign to sell ObamaCare, CBS political correspondent John Dickerson reported it will be a tough sell. Dickerson described ObamaCare as “particularly ugly," "complicated," and "bumpy" in its implementation:
NORAH O’DONNELL: Why does the administration feel they need to do this?
JOHN DICKERSON: This is the President’s signature achievement of his presidency regardless of what happens to come. Unlike what we normally see which is the President campaigning for a law to get it passed, now it’s passed and he has to go out there and sell it for both policy and political reasons. On the policy front, he needs more people to sign up because that will keep costs lower, particularly younger Americans. If those younger Americans don’t join these new exchanges, the premiums will go up because the people who do join the exchanges will be the chronically ill. So he’s got to sell it to make it work better, so that’s the policy piece, and politically Republicans are gunning for this for the 2014 elections. They’re hoping the run against all democrats on this, so the President has to go out there and provide cover, explain why there are good parts of it and get out there and sort of rebut these attacks as best he can.
O’DONNELL: But, John, it sounds like the White House says this is going to sound like a pre-mother’s day speech. The President is ging to be speaking to mothers. We know the preventative services provided by Obamacare are some of the most popular parts of the plan but what about the story tlike Jan Crawford reported on earlier this week that small businesses still don’t know how they’re going to make this work.
DICKERSON: Well they don’t know how they’re going to make it work so the President has to explain it. He has get out there and talk about the way it will work, but this is not a pretty piece of legislation. Remember how it was put together. This is not a sleek operation with Swiss watch timing, and so it’s going to be bumpy and it’s going to be ugly as it gets implemented. The best thing the President can do is to try and accentuate the best parts and also educate people because there’s no better voice for educating it than the President.
CHARLIE ROSE: You anticipated my question, John. Is this simply badly constructed legislation?
DICKERSON: Well, all legislation is pretty ugly and this was particularly ugly because of the way it was put together and it had to be jammed through at the end. So this is — and it’s complicated. It’s dealing with bringing millions of new people into this insurance system. It’s forcing people to change the way they do things, and so it’s got lots and lots of different moving parts, and also, by the way, when Democrats talk about train wreck here, what they’re saying, some of them, is Republicans have not funded this as much as we, the Democrats would like, and also Republicans governors are dragging their feet so there’s opposition that’s constant here. [Transcript via Washington Free Beacon].
Which brings us to the silence of other Democrats like Mark Begich, Bruce Braley, Kay Hagan, Mary Landrieu, Gary Peters and Mark Pryor.
Leading Democrats now admit what many of us always knew -- ObamaCare is a train wreck. The ever unpopular ObamaCare remains so as people start to finally see what was actually in the bill, how incompetently it was drafted and implemented, and how expensive it is even with all the smoke and mirrors the Democrats to make it seem "affordable."
More and more Americans now unfortunately know all too well that Obama did not keep his oft-repeated promise that those that like their doctor and like their health care plan will be able to keep their doctor and health plan. Last year the nonpartisan CBO, found that ObamaCare could cause as many as 20 million Americans to lose their employer-provided healthcare.
So why do Democrats like Begich, Braley, Hagan, Landrieu, Peters and Pryor remain silent about The ObamaCare train wreck? Perhaps those Democrats in red states that voted for ObamaCare are silent because they fear ObamaCare will cost them the 2014 midterms as it did the 2010 midterms.
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