Healthcare Law Debate Spills Over Into New York City Mayoral Race
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Now they're fighting over Obamacare.
Bill de Blasio and Joe Lhota have taken their differences in the New York City mayoral race to the corridors of power in Washington, where the healthcare debate has led to a partial government shutdown.
The divisive debate that has Democrats and Republicans in our nation's capitol at each other's throats spilled over Monday after Republican Lhota said he thought the implementation of Obamacare should be delayed for a year.
"Yes, I am there. Why should we implement something that we don't understand how to implement?" Lhota said during an interview on WNYC radio. "I think there's so much confusion about the individual mandate right now both within the administration and outside the administration."
That had Democrat Bill de Blasio charging.
"This is another example of the fact that Joe Lhota is a true Republican who is aligning in this case with the extreme views of the Republican Party in the House of Representatives. He is taking a tea party view of the world and I find that outrageous," de Blasio said.
Actually, Lhota did not support the shutdown of government brought about by tea party Republicans.
"I cannot tell you how upsetting it is to me to see 30 extremists in Washington control the entire government. There's something very, very wrong about it," Lhota said.
De Blasio pointed out that Obamacare would help some 600,000 in New York City get health insurance
"What Mr. Lhota is saying is he thinks in effect, he thinks 600,000 people should continue being uninsured and go without that protection, their families should not have protection and that we should delay something that could fundamentally cut healthcare costs in this country,' de Blasio said.
Lhota is calling on both sides to meet and negotiate a compromise, so that hundreds of thousands of government workers can go back to work.
He also said it was "silly" and "embarrassing" for House members to vote to pay furloughed government workers even though they are doing no work.
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