{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://cole.house.gov/media-center/weekly-columns/unlikely-alliance", "An Unlikely Alliance", "2016-10-10", "2016", "2016-10", "Republican", "House", "OK", "Tom Cole", "C001053", "cole.house.gov", null, null, "legacy", "When the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, was passed in the spring of 2010 it was done so with no Republican votes.\u00a0 Since then, the Republican controlled House of Representatives has voted more than sixty times to repeal the law.\u00a0 Republican animosity towards this destruction of our health care system is well established.\u00a0 But recently another high profile political leader added his voice to the chorus of well deserved criticism of the disastrous consequences of Obamacare.\n\t\u00a0\n\t\u201cPeople gained access to health insurance but wind up with their premiums doubled and their coverage cut in half...The people getting killed in this deal are the small businesspeople and individuals who make just a little too much to get in on these subsidies...It\u2019s the craziest thing in the world.\u201d\u00a0 The sentiments expressed in these statements aren\u2019t a surprise - they are shared by a majority of Americans.\u00a0 However, the fact that these sentiments were expressed by former President Bill Clinton, arguably the most revered figure in the Democratic Party, speaks volumes about the real impact Obamacare is having on the American middle class.\n\t\u00a0\n\tThe American people have known since it\u2019s inception that Obamacare is a disaster.\u00a0 It has done lasting damage to individual health care options and to the market for health insurance. And in the waning days of his presidency, President Obama himself is even recognizing that the flaws the program has might give way to its demise. Even Congressional Democrats have been developing buyer\u2019s remorse for blindly supporting the law in the first place. Dissent of Obamacare has suddenly become a bipartisan issue as evidenced by Bill Clinton\u2019s unexpected candor.\n\t\u00a0\n\tI could say that I\u2019m shocked that one of the country\u2019s leading Democratic leaders has pulled the curtain back on the truth of Obamacare.\u00a0 But the reality is that like most Americans, Bill Clinton has come to the conclusion that Obamacare just does not work. I give President Clinton credit for this one and I fully agree with him \u2013 the law simply \u201cdoesn\u2019t make sense.\u201d\n\t\u00a0\n\tThe fundamental flaw of Obamacare is the rapidly rising premiums, which pay for increasingly inferior healthcare. In some states like\u00a0Minnesota, premiums are increasing by almost 70 percent. Yet despite these massive premium increases, the top four insurance companies in the country are losing hundreds of millions of dollars on their Obamacare plans. Throughout the country, several insurers have made the decision to simply exit the market. The impact of insurance companies leaving markets results in the opposite of Obamacare\u2019s promises \u2013 it leaves little competition and no room for a marketplace of choices. In fact,\u00a0a third of the U.S. will be left out with no health insurance choices in 2017. Many states across the U.S. will only have one choice in the Obamacare marketplace next year \u2013 and\u00a0Oklahoma is one of them.\u00a0\n\t\u00a0\n\tThe utter disaster that is Obamacare and the litany of problems it has created will be one of the biggest challenges this Administration will leave to their successor.\u00a0 Unfortunately, fixing the problems created by Obamacare will be far more complex than simply repealing the law.\u00a0 Obamacare isn\u2019t just a disaster in it\u2019s own right, it did serious damage to the health care industry that could take years to reverse.\u00a0 The next President would be well advised to learn from the mistakes of this failed experiment and recognize that free markets, consumer choice, and minimal regulations and mandates are the fundamental principles for successful reform.\u00a0 Had President Obama heeded these principles, health care reform could have been his legacy rather than the disaster it has turned out to be.", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://cole.house.gov/media-center/weekly-columns/unlikely-alliance"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.0738689452409744, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}