Politics/elections

Passage of healthcare reform was worth any defeat the Democrats might have suffered at the polls as a result, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday.

The two leading Tea Party groups cheered Sen. Max Baucus's decision to retire as a major blow against ObamaCare, a law the Montana Democrat helped craft.

Healthcare reform has been a unifying issue for Tea Party activists since 2009. One group, Tea Party Patriots, jumped on Baucus's announcement Tuesday and tied it to his recent warning that the law could become a "huge train wreck."

"Yes, ObamaCare is a 'train wreck' and unfortunately Sen. Baucus realized it after authoring and promoting this terrible law," said Tea Party Patriots National Coordinator Jenny Beth Martin in a statement.

Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) will leave behind a complicated legacy on healthcare when he leaves the Senate at the end of his term.

Baucus has distanced himself from his party on a range of hot-button issues, including gun control and taxes. But he was instrumental in delivering one of the left's biggest legislative victories in decades — the passage of the Affordable Care Act.

"It shows what a political albatross ObamaCare will be for people who passed that in 2014," Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) said Tuesday. "That is the price they are going to have to pay for jamming through a law that can’t work and we can’t afford."

The online ads will air in districts of 17 House lawmakers who voted for the Ryan budget last month.

It's been three years since President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law — and since healthcare helped sweep Republicans into the House majority. But Republicans aren't getting the same mileage out their anti-ObamaCare message these days. Democratic strategists say they're not too worried about the healthcare attacks they'll likely face in 2014 Senate races.

Although the ACA remains unpopular in public polling, continuing to fight over the law is also unpopular. The law has been on the books since 2010, and it was further legitimized by the Supreme Court's ruling last year and Obama's reelection in a campaign that saw plenty of healthcare attacks. 

Democrats point to their wins in red states in 2012 to argue that healthcare won't be a potent attack in 2014. And they also note that big parts of the law will be in place in 2014, including its coverage expansion and its most politically popular consumer protections. Republicans might have a harder time campaigning on a repeal platform once those benefits become real, Democrats argue.

Of course, the opposite is also true — if the 2014 rollout goes poorly and predictions of rising costs or erosions in employer-based care come true, Republicans who held fast to their absolute rejection of the ACA might find themselves in a much better position.

We have a full analysis of the state of healthcare politics three years in.

Obama's care: Republicans have filed a slew of healthcare amendments to the Senate's budget proposal. Among them: a proposal to require President Obama, Vice President Biden and members of the Cabinet to get their health coverage through the law's exchanges. The White House has said in the past that Obama would join an exchange once they're online in 2014, and this proposal, from Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), would make that pledge legally binding. Healthwatch has the story.

After the law passed, the White House said Obama would enroll in an exchange once the time came in 2014.

Three years after President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act (ACA) into law, the public continues to have a poor understanding of the reforms and how they will affect them.

The latest tracking poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that the public still doesn't understand what's in the healthcare law — and what voters do know is mostly negative.

The findings indicate that Republicans have done a far better job defining the healthcare law than Democrats: the more popular a provision is, the less likely people are to realize it's included in the ACA.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Wednesday that the House will vote again soon to repeal or defund President Obama's healthcare law.

"Well I would expect that sometime in the coming months that we will once again move to get rid of ObamaCare," Boehner said in an interview on Sean Hannity's radio show. "We've had a number of votes in the House in the last two years to end ObamaCare or get rid of it."

The House held 33 votes over the last two years to repeal or defund all or part of the Affordable Care Act, but the repeal push has faded since the Supreme Court upheld the law and President Obama's reelection ensured that repeal votes would be futile.

Rep. Stephen Lynch's (D-Mass.) vote against President Obama's signature healthcare law has him on the defensive in a hotly contested Senate primary.

Lynch is facing Rep. Ed Markey in a primary battle for the seat vacated by John Kerry. And the Boston Globe reported Friday that some Massachusetts Democrats are still unhappy with Lynch for changing his vote and opposing the Affordable Care Act in the House.

“It was a profile in both moral and political cowardice,” Richard Kirsch, a prominent supporter of the healthcare push, told the Globe.

Mitt Romney said Sunday that the 2010 healthcare law was crucial in turning out minority and low-income voters for President Obama.

Romney blamed the law, in part, for his own election loss during an interview with Fox News Sunday.

"ObamaCare was very attractive, particularly to those without health insurance. And they came out in large numbers to vote. So that was part of a successful campaign," Romney said.