Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) said on Sunday that Obamacare’s endless problems could create a “complete meltdown” and endanger Democrats’ control of the U.S. Senate.
“If it’s so much more expensive than what we anticipated and if the coverage is not as good as what we had, you’ve got a complete meltdown at that time,” Manchin said on CNN’s State of the Union. “If it falls of its own weight, if basically the cost becomes more than we can absorb, absolutely.”
The West Virginia Democrat’s comments come one day before Obamacare’s critical December 23 enrollment deadline. The Obama administration says it needs to enroll seven million people by the end of March for Obamacare’s financials to work as designed. Tomorrow’s enrollment deadline marks the midpoint of the healthcare overhaul’s implementation, meaning the program would be expected to have roughly 3.5 million enrollments to keep on pace.
“It needs to turn around,” said Manchin. “I’m not going to say that I think we will lose it (the Senate). It’s going to be extremely challenging. We have some very good people who are truly there, I believe, for the right reason. They’re going to be challenged for the wrong reason.”
Obamacare remains overwhelmingly unpopular with Americans. The RealClearPolitics average of polls finds that just 38% of Americans now support Obama’s signature legislative achievement, Obamacare.
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