In an interview today with the Poughkeepsie Journal editorial board, Sean Eldridge finally admitted that he would have voted for ObamaCare.
POUGHKEEPSIE JOURNAL: “The other thing on your website I noticed about the Affordable Care Act, or actually you don’t mention it in particular, but you say we need to fix and improve the healthcare system. So, do you support the Affordable Care Act? Was that a good—would you have supported that if you were in Congress at the time?”
ELDRIDGE: “I would have. I think we need to improve it. But yes, look, we had about a million people sign up in New York State for the exchanges, which I think speaks to the demand, the need for health care. You know, I believe in a universal right to access health care for yourself and your family. I think the Affordable Care Act has been far from perfect. I certainly support the fact that young people can stay on their health insurance longer, that pre-existing conditions no longer mean you have to go bankrupt, but there’s definitely a lot of frustration with some of the unintended consequences. I think the fact that people are having their hours cut in some cases because the employers are doing that in some cases so they don’t have to provide coverage. That’s an issue; we need to look at those hours. Some members of the labor community are frustrated because the Taft-Hartley plans, the multi-employer plans, aren’t receiving the same subsidies that they expected they would. So let’s work to improve it. I would not vote, I think it’s 51 times now, that Congressman Gibson has voted to repeal it. We’ve wasted a lot of energy and a lot of taxpayer dollars to have 51 votes that aren’t going anywhere. Let’s work to improve it. Let’s work to make sure that health care is a reality for our families. We’re not there yet, there’s more work to do.”
This comes as a surprise, given that Eldridge has dodged this question in the past:
True to his otherwise circumspect approach, however, Eldridge declined to say whether he would have voted for the bill, knowing what he does now about its implementation, had he been a member of Congress in 2010.
“It’s impossible to speculate on something when I wasn’t there and wasn’t in the room and didn’t have an opportunity to vote on it,” he said. “But what I would say now moving forward is that I would not vote more than 40 times, as my opponent has, to repeal the Affordable Care Act.”