President Barack Obama’s 2010 health care reform bill apparently has another critic: Congressman Barney Frank.
The retiring Massachusetts Democrat told New York magazine that he thought Obama’s push for health care reform was a “mistake,” comparing it to a failed reform effort by former President Bill Clinton’s in the 1990s.
“When you try to extend health care to people who don’t have it, people who have it and are on the whole satisfied with it get nervous,” he said.
He argued that after the Democrats lost their filibuster-proof majority in the Senate with the election of Scott Brown, a Republican, health care reform should have been pushed back.
“I think we paid a terrible price for health care,” he said. “I would not have pushed it as hard.”
Following the interview’s publication, the National Republican Congressional Committee issued a statement that said, “Even Barney Frank admits that ObamaCare has been a disaster.”
Frank told Talking Points Memo that the NRCC was “twisting my words.”
“No, I have no issue with the subject matter or the bill itself,” he said. “I was just commenting on the politics.”