As his Senate committee questioned Kathleen Sebelius on Wednesday about the disastrous ObamaCare rollout, Max Baucus was in high dudgeon.
Who can blame him?
When the president signed ObamaCare into law in 2010, the Montana Democrat issued a press release hailing it as “a victory for our state, for our nation, and for future generations” — and boasting about being “one of the key authors.” But with the debut having become a national punchline, Baucus is distancing himself. At Wednesday’s hearing, he declared the law’s progress “unacceptable,” suggested the administration was being less than candid and wondered if we might “wake up at the end of November and, lo and behold, still nothing yet.”
It’s a part of a public transformation that began earlier this year when the Senate Finance Committee chairman predicted the rollout of ObamaCare could be a “train wreck.” His warning made him no friends in the White House, but his words have proved prophetic.
“I spent two years of my life working on the Affordable Care Act,” Baucus said at the hearing. “There is nothing I want more than for it to succeed.” But he went on to offer criticism after criticism.
Other Senate Democrats at the hearing seemed to be caught in the same frustration: alternately trying to suggest the problems could be fixed while angling to give themselves cover in case they aren’t.
No doubt many of them noticed how, just the day before, a Republican candidate who was well behind in the Virginia gubernatorial election ended up making the race much closer when he started hammering his Democratic opponent on ObamaCare. No doubt, too, that came up at the post-election White House meeting between President Obama and 16 Senate Democrats up for re-election themselves next year.
In his own evolution from proud co-architect to the man of many gripes, Baucus reflects the growing unease among Democrats on Capitol Hill about where ObamaCare is going — and where it will take them. As one of its architects, Baucus still can’t bring himself to admit the problem is as much the plan as the execution.
Of course, Baucus has the luxury of this position for only one reason: He’s retiring.