Michigan Democratic Rep. John Conyers hopes to make the word “ObamaCare” a compliment.
“I like the term,” Conyers told The Hill. “I wish I had invented it myself.”
Conyers, who has been a congressman since 1965, said, “The fact that a healthcare bill is named after a first-term president who does what two other presidents before him couldn’t accomplish is really a compliment.”
He suggested that despite the current use of the term, “A few years from now, ObamaCare will be looked upon as a complimentary description, rather than what [critics] are trying to portray it as now.”
In February, Florida Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz , who became the chairperson of the Democratic National Committee in May, said that using the term was “clearly in violation of House rules” that prohibit “disparaging references to the President of the United States.”
Conyers, the ranking member of the House Judiciary committee and an ardent supporter of single-payer health care, told The Hill that he hasn’t discussed his effort with Wasserman Schultz, but that he has worn an “I Heart ObamaCare” button to a committee that they both serve on.