The ObamaCare “Train Wreck”

April 18th, 2013

Shortly after oral arguments in NFIB v. Sebelius, Jeff Toobin famously claimed that based on Solicitor General Verrilli’s poor performance, the case was a “Train wreck” and it was going be struck down.”

Well, Toobin was wrong, and he later apologized.

But now Senator Max Baucus, the chairman of the Finance Committee who guided the ACA through the Senate has also used the same phrase, calling ObamaCare a pending “tran wreck.”

Funny that they both use the same words to describe this law.

Update: Rep. Mike Pompeo calls out Baucus for this train wreck of his own making:

Dear Senator Baucus,

I was stunned, and also saddened, to read of your complaint that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is doing an insufficient job informing the public about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), otherwise known as Obamacare.  My shock wasn’t because I disagreed: You’re right to say this legislation has led to great uncertainty for hard-working Americans, small business owners, and families.  No, I was shocked because you wrote this bill.  I was saddened because your acknowledgement of the harm caused by PPACA has come so late.

Unlike you, the American people have opposed this law from the moment it was first introduced in Congress.  How hard was it to see that even the smartest government bureaucrats can’t competently plan something as complicated as America’s health-care sector?

 No one in the country bears more responsibility for the complexity of this law than you.  When your supermajority couldn’t pass the bill using normal procedures, you and your Senate colleagues rammed through the final legislation by using parliamentary gimmickry.  Then, in the House, Speaker Pelosi cheerfully urged members to pass the legislation “in order to find out what’s in it.”

This was not good policy-making, and now we’re seeing the consequences.