House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) isn’t worried about Democrats being forced to run on Obamacare in 2014. In fact, the Congresswoman said she was “proud to own the Affordable Care Act.”
“We stand by the policy, we’re proud of it and any big, transformative initiative is hard,” she told the audience at “BuzzFeed Brews” on Tuesday night.
Pelosi stressed that the policy itself is “sound,” despite the struggles to launch HealthCare.gov — which she added would be operational soon. She joked that coming from Northern California, the home of multiple tech companies, she was especially disappointed in the website.
Instead of being focused on Obamacare, Pelosi said the 2014 midterm election will be about jobs, the economy, Medicare and budgets. She admitted that some of the messaging around Obamacare was flawed, but argued that Republicans want to keep talking about it simply because they are avoiding other topics such as immigration reform and universal background checks for firearm purchases.
She pointed out that many aspects of Obamacare — such as not being rejected for pre-existing conditions and children staying on their parents’ insurance until they’re 26 — are already in place and working well.
“Make no mistake, the Democrats are united on this,” she said.
Earlier this month, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) also claimed that Democrats would run on Obamacare “as an advantage” in 2014.
