posted October 25, 2013 09:52 AM            

The New Hampshire senator fundamentally altered the health-care fight on Tuesday with a letter to the White House demanding it both extend the ObamaCare enrollment deadline and waive tax penalties for those unable to enroll. Within nanoseconds, Arkansas Sen. Mark Pryor had endorsed her "common-sense idea." By Wednesday night, five Senate Democrats were on board, pushing for . . . what's that dirty GOP word? Oh, right. "Delay."

After 16 long days of vowing to Republicans that they would not cave in any way, shape or form on ObamaCare, Democrats spent their first post-shutdown week caving in every way, shape and form. With the GOP's antics now over, the only story now is the unrivaled disaster that is the president's health-care law.

Hundreds of thousands of health-insurance policies canceled. Companies dumping coverage and cutting employees' hours. Premiums skyrocketing. And a website that reprises the experience of a Commodore 64. As recently as May, Democratic consultants were advising members of Congress that their best ObamaCare strategy for 2014 was to "own" the law. Ms. Shaheen has now publicly advised the consultants where they can file that memo.
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Chad Crowe

In the Senate, West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin is working on legislation to delay the individual mandate's enforcement for a year. CNN reports that all 16 Senate Democrats up for re-election are expected to support Ms. Shaheen's proposal. In the House, Democratic members are stacking up behind all of these ideas, and more.

Even House liberals have felt it necessary to reassure voters that they, too, are angry—though so far they are merely calling for scalps. "I'd like to see somebody lose their job over this. I think it's outrageous," complained New York Rep. Sean Maloney. "Somebody's got to man up here—get rid of these people," said Minnesota's Rick Nolan. This is presumably a call for a certain "somebody" to do something more than 1-800 commercials from the Rose Garden.

This Democratic freakout has been building for months, even if it was masked by the shutdown headlines and the way the media reported that event. Nationally, yes, the GOP took a drubbing on the shutdown. But next year isn't a national election. It's a midterm that will turn on key states, where polls all along have found disapproval of ObamaCare, the president and his party's handling of the economy.

In Arkansas, Mr. Pryor's home state, a poll conducted by the University of Arkansas from Oct. 10-17 found that 39% of likely voters blame Mr. Obama for the shutdown (only 27% blame congressional Republicans). Just 29% approve of Mr. Obama, and Mr. Pryor's disapproval ratings jumped 21 points in just a year, to 44%, from 21%.

More worrisome for the Democratic senator is a recent poll conducted by OnMessage for his GOP rival Tom Cotton. Only 33% of Arkansans support ObamaCare. The number drops to 28% for independent voters. Even one-third of Democrats in the state oppose the law.

The numbers aren't much better in Ms. Shaheen's New Hampshire, or in Alaska, Louisiana, North Carolina, West Virginia or Montana. The Democrats up for election in these states know that the sword of Damocles hanging over their heads isn't the Republican Party, but their own president's law.

The GOP's aggressive shutdown tactics only forestalled this flight for political cover. It allowed Senate Majority Harry Reid to keep his troops united, on grounds that they needed to make a point. But absent a GOP bogeyman, Democrats quickly realized that they had no further excuses for inaction—save partisan fealty to a failed law. That won't wash with voters.

The White House's problem is that political cracks like this don't get patched; they grow. Until this week, the administration could write off the 20-odd House Democrats who voted with Republicans this summer to delay parts of the law as victims of a tough vote orchestrated by the GOP. But now a numerically significant number of Senate Democrats have, on their own, signaled that it is acceptable for members of the president's party to demand consequential ObamaCare changes.

The pressure for other Democrats to join will rise, as will the pressure for the party to embrace more extensive changes to the law. Even before the ObamaCare rollout, Mr. Pryor and North Carolina's Kay Hagan had co-sponsored legislation to kill ObamaCare's rationing board (the House version has 23 Democratic co-sponsors). Alaska Sen. Mark Begich had introduced a bill to delay the business mandate for two years. There is bipartisan opposition to the medical-device tax, to the ObamaCare slush fund and to the IRS's central role in coordinating the law.

The White House has lived in fear of this moment, and the administration's biggest problem is that it has no quick bandage for this bleed. Healthcare.gov is weeks or months from being fixed—if it is fixable at all. Enrollment numbers will thus remain dismal. The insurance horror stories are only beginning. The congressional hearings, too. The administration could sack Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, but it knows that getting a replacement nominee through the Senate would likely prove more painful than keeping her.

posted October 25, 2013 09:28 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Randall:
His legacy was getting this behemeth passed. Now it might be that his legacy has turned into an embarrassment.

You are missing the point of the article, which is that the Democrats who would not budge are now leaping.

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posted October 25, 2013 11:06 PM            

Yes I'm sure there's embarrassment but that is an emotion that spurs the determined to do better. Do you let a cockup convince you to shut up shop? We've all been embarrassed if we have put oursrlves out there.

posted October 28, 2013 09:30 AM            

I just had the worst dream. I was standing center stage, eager to unveil my fancy new website. I pressed the button; the website crashed, and 7 billion people started laughing at me.

Do you think Obama ever had that dream? Nah, neither do I. Images like that spring from an inborn sense of accountability, a drive to make good on promises and to earn genuine respect.

The last time Obama sought to earn genuine respect was when he invented "roof hits" with his pot-smoking Choom Gang.

And ever since those high times in Hawaii, our Stoner Emeritus has trafficked in hustle, fraud, and thuggery, each mysteriously charmed step of the way.

So what did Obama hope to achieve with his 2,700-page poison pill of ObamaCare?

Simple. Cast your mind back to that golden age one month ago, before you were forced to spend countless precious hours of your mortal life, trying to log onto a $500-million dysfunctional website.

Twas then that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius summoned the media to proclaim the coming glories of ObamaCare. And, lo, the miracle of "health-care" reform arose through the shimmering mists, as she revealed its national hotline number: 1-800-F**K-YO.

And that, dear readers, is the point of the whole shebang.

16 million of you have lost insurance and don't know how you'll get health care for you and your loved ones? Well, 1-800-F**K-YOU.

Your premiums have doubled, trebled, quadrupled, and you don't see how to put food on the table and pay for insurance? Let's make things perfectly clear: 1-800-F**K-YOU.

Doctors quitting? Hospitals shedding staff? Medical device companies taxed to ruination? The entire insurance business destroyed? Millions of jobs lost or stomped into part-time, to comply with ObamaCare regulations? Hey, fellow Americans, 1-800-F**K-YOU.

Fined for not buying a product that you can't buy, because our website doesn't work? Forced to buy it, and we're not, because we gave ourselves a magic exemption? A hale and hearty 1-800-F**K-YOU. We work for Great and Godly Government, got that?

And we're so confident that we can shove this toxic stew down your gullets that here's what we're going to do.

We're not making any deals about defunding or delaying, no matter how catastrophic we know our website will be. Of course not!

Instead, we're shutting down the United States government. We're paying government workers to put up barricades in front of open-air war memorials to keep out 90-year-old war heroes.

We're sending riot police to threaten veterans in wheelchairs to make sure they don't get away with paying respect to their fallen brethren.

We're closing Yellowstone Park and locking up elderly tourists under armed guard. Then we're making them travel 2.5 hours out of the park, forbidding them to stop at private bathrooms along the way.

You want us to explain how forcing Japanese tourists to go in their pants will help even one sick child? OK, we'll explain: 1-800-F**K-YOU. That's how.

We're threatening to arrest Catholic priests who celebrate mass on military bases, leaving some of America's bravest without religious services. Why threaten Catholic priests and not Protestant ministers? Because 1-800-F**K-YOU. That's why.

We're forcing senior citizens with walkers and scooters to leave their fully-paid-for homes, and we're demanding that legitimate private charities and businesses close their operations. What statute allows us to arbitrarily evict American citizens from their homes and business? Statute 1-800-F**K-YOU. That statute.

We're blocking access to graveyards and forcing children to take dangerous "white knuckle" rides to school. Want your kids to be safe when they travel? Well, we want ObamaCare "for the children." So 1-800-F**K-YOU.

You think you can brush us off? You think you can stop us? Haven't you figured out we're not playing that kind of game? This whole witches brew of ObamaCare was dreamed up in jail by a Congresswoman's husband, doing time for 16 counts of bank fraud. You think we want it to work?

We've got our hands on every lever of power in the greatest country in the world. We've steamrolled our way to $17 trillion in debt, and now we're spending money to cover up Mount Rushmore to force Americans to buy a product they don't want from a website that doesn't work -- and nobody has arrested us yet or led us away in a net.

posted October 28, 2013 01:16 PM            

quote:

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—at least 53 percent actually back the law or believe it should be expanded. And the poll was taken at the worst possible time—amidst the current widespread complaints about the roll-out of the ACA sign-up provisions.

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Shoot, the complaints to Apple about ANY new release of product are in the millions.
Was it wise for the Obama admin to contract with a Canadian co. with a a bad track record for their health care site?...um, NO.

To portray DEM'S against the roll out is agenda driven at best.
The polling shows they wanted it to go further, as in say--single payer, or Gasp- Medicare for all.

posted October 28, 2013 01:57 PM            

Great article, Jwhop. I could not have said it better if I did so myself and I did.

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posted October 28, 2013 11:41 PM            

Yes you did Ami.

"Well, from what I have read DEMS are unhappy that the LAW does not go far enough"...Node

But this misses the point. It's demoscat congressional members...at least 10 Senators, who want to delay the O'BomberCare individual mandates.

posted October 29, 2013 06:47 AM            

Yes you did Ami.

Thank you Jwhop. I am glad someone appreciates my contributions

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