In an interview with Fox News Sunday’s Chris Wallace yesterday, Democratic Gov. Joe Manchin tried to explain his approval of the President Obama’s health-care bill in March, arguing that he had not been aware of certain details “in the weeds of the bill.”
“I think many people didn’t know about the bill. It ends up, what, 2,000 pages or more,” Manchin said, saying that if he had known in March what he knew now he would not have said that he would have voted for it.
Manchin did not mention what specific details had changed his mind. The details he slammed in the bill included the individual mandate, which Wallace pointed out had been well-known before the bill’s passing.
Manchin also stressed the need to ensure that those with pre-existing conditions had access to health care. “The concept was great as far as preexisting conditions,” he said. “How do we make sure more people have affordable insurance? How do we take care of children, people with preexisting conditions, keeping children on insurances longer because of the market conditions? There’s a lot of good parts to it. Why won’t we fix what’s wrong with it and make it better?”
Wallace also asked Manchin about this statement he made in 2008: “Barack brings that leadership to us. He brings the partnership, coming from a coal state himself. Now, they’re going to have to pay for the carbons, whether cap and trade or whether it’s in the carbon tax.”
Manchin dodged directly addressing the statement, reiterating that he had never supported cap-and-trade, and focused on how acid rain issue had been fixed without taxing coal.