WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), Chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, issued the following statement Wednesday after the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released enrollment numbers for the first month of the Affordable Care Act marketplaces.
“I appreciate the Department’s release of detailed enrollment data. As the Administration works through technical problems with the website’s rollout, it’s important that they be as transparent as possible. While the numbers are not as high as everyone would like, we should all step back, take a deep breath, and recognize the significance of these numbers. More than 100,000 people have gotten all the way through the process, and chosen a health plan through the marketplace. Almost 400,000 have enrolled in Medicaid through the marketplace. Those are hard facts – not rhetoric or politics. Those numbers mean that half a million people now have health coverage because of this law. In the coming months, we will hear from even more Americans – like the stories I am hearing from Iowans – who are taking advantage of this coverage.”
As Chairman of the HELP Committee, Harkin played a pivotal role in the passage of the ACA. He also serves as Chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies.
Harkin is exiting the political stage as things are getting real ugly – how convenient!!
Quoting Krauthammer – “As the only socially transformational legislation in modern American history to be enacted on a straight party-line vote, Obamacare is wholly owned by the Democrats. Its unraveling would catastrophically undermine their underlying ideology of ever-expansive central government providing cradle-to-grave care for an ever-grateful citizenry.”
As a principal participant in this travesty foisted on the tax payers I hope the door hits him on the backside particularly hard.
Of course this fool did not mention how the states are going to pay for the huge numbers going into medicaid because its free for them. You guessed it the working will have to pay. Harkin will follow his idiot leader to the end.
Touche, Dave!
I can’t wait for this old raison to get the hell out of the senate. He’s done enough damage the way it is.
This is all part of Obumers plan to fundamentally change the country. It is spreading the wealth and is nothing more than an all out attack on hard working middle class people.
Enrollment is low because the whole thing sucks. Obama should have kept his nose out of peoples business and tended to what’s best for our American country. Know he has peoples insurance going up and being canceled. He is the worst President our country has ever had in office.