Rep. Barney Frank bails on Obamacare

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) thinks doing Obamacare in 2010 was a mistake. I have to agree.

Via The Hill:

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) thought President Obama was making a “mistake” in pressing for healthcare reform in 2010 and urged the White House to back off after Democrats lost their 60-seat majority in the Senate, the congressman tells New York magazine.

“I think we paid a terrible price for healthcare,” Frank told the magazine in a lengthy interview as he prepares to retire at the end of his 16th term. “I would not have pushed it as hard. As a matter of fact, after [Sen.] Scott Brown [R-Mass.] won [in January 2010], I suggested going back. I would have started with financial reform, but certainly not healthcare.”

Democrats lost 66 House seats in the 2010 midterm elections. One political science paper estimated that about 25 of those losses could be linked directly to voting in favor of the healthcare reform law.

Frank, who supported Hillary Clinton in 2008, said Obama made the same mistake the Clintons did in the early 1990s by underestimating the concerns of people who already had healthcare coverage.