Schumer Admits Dems Were Wrong To Pass ObamaCare Instead of Trying To Fix Economy

"After passing the stimulus, Democrats should have continued to propose middle class-oriented programs and built on the partial success of the stimulus. But unfortunately Democrats blew the opportunity the American people gave them. We took their mandate and put all of our focus on the wrong problem — health care reform. Now, the play of uninsured Americans in the hardships caused by unfair insurance  company practices certainly needed to be addressed. But it wasn't the change we were hired to make. Americans were crying out for the end to the recession, for better wages and more jobs, not changes in health care.

This makes sense, considering that 85 percent of all Americans got their health care from either the government -- Medicare, Medicaid -- or their employer. And if health care costs were going up, it really didn’t affect them. The Affordable Care Act was aimed at the 36 million Americans who were not covered. It's been reported that only third of the uninsured are even registered to vote. In 2010, only about 40 percent of those registered voted. So even if the uninsured kept with the rate, which they likely didn't, you would still only be talking about 5 percent of the electorate. Doing the huge change in mandate such a small to be electorate made no political sense. So when Democrats focused on health care, the average middle class person thought, 'Democrats are not paying enough attention to me.'"