Toomey On Affordable Care Act: 'It's A Complete Debacle'
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – On Thursday on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT, Chris Stigall spoke with Senator Pat Toomey about President Obama's announcement this week that over seven million Americans have enrolled for health insurance through healthcare.gov as well as the upcoming midterm elections in November.
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Toomey does not agree with statements from the White House that the Affordable Care Act is working out and believes the country will hold Democrats responsible as a consequence.
"They know it's a complete debacle. They know it's a complete disaster. They know the American people are figuring that out, but they completely own it…Their only hope now is that they can somehow spin their way into getting the American people to think it's not so bad. That's the strategy. And the complementing part of that strategy is just unilaterally change the law so that the most painful aspects of it will hit people after the election," he said.
He says even the encouraging numbers from the administration have a dark underside.
"Seven million sounds like a big number, but the problem is we think it's approximately five million people who lost their insurance entirely because of Obamacare. The bill threw them off the plan that they were satisfied with, that they were happy with, that they were paying for and that they were promised that they could keep," Toomey said.
Toomey also believes Republicans election hopes for November continue to look brighter.
"I think the way it looks at the moment is we have a better than even chance of taking the majority [in the Senate]…The political environment generally, at this point, is better than most cycles. Actually, it's quite comparable, based on polling data, to what 2010 was like," he said.
He said the way things look now, Republicans will almost surely win four Senate seats and could easily add the two more they need to take over both houses of Congress.
"We know the environment will different in November. We don't know how it will be different. It could be better, could be worse, but at the moment it looks we have a reasonably good chance to take the majority," Toomey stated.