Tom Harkin on Obamacare: “we should have either done it the correct way or not done anything at all”

  Last week Chuck Schumer went on record as saying the Democrats should not have focused on healthcare reform in 2010 until the Congress had dealt with other issues more pressing to a majority of the American people first and now Democratic Senator, and Obamacare co-author, Tom Harkin is joining him in questioning the Democrats over Obamacare.

  Unlike Chuck Schumer, Tom Harkin is not claiming the Democrats should not have focused on healthcare reform but he is basically claiming the Democrats screwed the whole thing up.

  Here is more:

Sen. Tom Harkin, one of the co-authors of the Affordable Care Act, now thinks Democrats may have been better off not passing it at all and holding out for a better bill.

The Iowa Democrat who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, laments the complexity of legislation the Senate passed five years ago.

He wonders in hindsight whether the law was made overly complicated to satisfy the political concerns of a few Democratic centrists who have since left Congress. 

“We had the power to do it in a way that would have simplified healthcare, made it more efficient and made it less costly and we didn’t do it,” Harkin told The Hill. “So I look back and say we should have either done it the correct way or not done anything at all.

“What we did is we muddled through and we got a system that is complex, convoluted, needs probably some corrections and still rewards the insurance companies extensively,” he added.

  He goes on to say that there are some good aspect to the bill but that it is too “complicated.”

  Of course this is what those of us who opposed Obamacare were saying from the beginning; any bill that needs to be passed before we can find out what is in it is too damned complicated, but for our opposition we were ridiculed and called uncaring about those who cannot afford insurance when that was never the case.

  We had major concerns about complicated legislation which was passed before the contents were known and now that it is too late some of the Democrats are finally beginning to admit we were right.

  Perhaps the Democrats should have listened to what we were trying to tell them but they were blinded by the power the American people gave them, and probably felt this was their last chance to pass legislation they had longed for for so long, and that is what guided them through the process. 

  Maybe next time they will listen but it amnesty is any indication I highly doubt it…