All, yes, ALL, Senate Democrats voted for Obamacare, even though most of them had no idea what was in the bill. They were giddy at the election of the exotic and charismatic Unicorn Prince, so they didn’t really care what was in the bill. As Nancy Pelosi famously and idiotically said, they could figure that out after they passed it.
One of those who so irresponsibly voted for this absurd mash-up of gifts to the medical-insurance-drug lobby’s corporatist cabal was N.C. Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan. In early 2010 she cooed enthusiastically about the bill’s wonderful effects:
“With this reform bill, we have reduced health care costs for families, seniors and small businesses for the long term, and families will have access to family doctors. It prevents insurance companies from dropping coverage when people get sick or denying coverage to people with preexisting conditions.”
But, as time passed it became clear that Obamacare wasn’t the wonder bill it was said to be by the White House and its fellow travelers in Congress. Just two months ago Hagan joined some jittery fellow Democrats to try to delay a key part of the plan, the medical device tax, that they so gushingly advocated in apparent ignorance just three years earlier:
“The medical technology industry directly employs over 400,000 people in the United States and is responsible for a total of 2 million high-skilled manufacturing jobs,” Minnesota Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar and North Carolina Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan wrote in a letter with 16 other senators and senators-elect Monday to Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid. “In an environment focused on increasing exports, promoting small businesses and growing high-tech manufacturing jobs for the future, we must do all we can to ensure that our country maintains its global leadership position in the medical technology industry and keeps good jobs here at home.”
The lawmakers urged Reid to support a delay in implementation, warning of the business consequences.
As the news of the horrible effects of this bill continue to leak out, even more Democrats are getting antsy, as they’re hearing from constituents asking them, “Just what the hell were you thinking when you voted for this bill?”:
Powerful Democrats who helped write and pass Obamacare subjected the new law’s chief administrator to withering criticism at a Senate hearing yesterday. Gary Cohen, the director of the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight, testified before the Senate Finance Committee, and the Democrats on the committee—from its Chairman Max Baucus to Senators Ron Wyden, Bill Nelson, and Maria Cantwell—tore into him.
Hagan wasn’t mentioned specifically as being among this latest group of spooked Dems, but I predict she will ramp up her CYA effort in coming weeks, leaking to the helpful N.C. media her quibbles and concerns with the “unforeseen details” and “unanticipated effects” of Obamacare.
