On Sunday morning talk shows, various pundits sat around television studios in Washington to ponder whether the disastrous rollout of the Affordable Care Act could hurt Democrats running for office next November.
But while no one can say for certain how resonant the issue will be in late 2014, some Democrats have to deal with the negative fallout of the ACA right now — such as Alex Sink, running in the special congressional election to replace Bill Young in Pinellas County.
The former Florida chief financial officer told CL on Monday that she's willing to give the Obama administration the benefit of the doubt that the program's website will be fixed soon. But she agrees that if the site isn't fully functioning in due time, "Then yes, definitely the time period has to be extended" for those individuals who have been informed by their current insurance carriers they their policies have been canceled.
"What I’m looking for now is to hold this administration accountable — I’m not going to Washington to apologize or defend any administration, whether it’s Republican or Democrat — I’m going to Washington to represent the people of this district. And be sure that government is working for them," she says.
[jump]Though Sink at times struggled to clarify her stance on President Obama's signature domestic achievement during her 2010 contest vs. Rick Scott, she was adamant today that she supports the law.
"We cannot go back where we were before," Sink says. "So the whole Republicans’ idea to repeal the ACA is totally wrong and what they suggest by that is what I don’t want. I don’t want to go back to people with pre-existing conditions [who] can’t find any insurance, I don’t want to go back to that [Medicare] prescription donut hole that seniors were impacted by many thousands of dollars. I don’t want to go back in time when people like my kids in their 20s were thrown off their parents' plan."
Sink spoke to a handful of reporters in brief one-on-one sessions after hanging out for a few minutes at the UPARC Foundation facility in Clearwater — a program that provides mental health and life skills services for Pinellas seniors with developmental disabilities.
Sink has been accused by the Republican Party of Florida of being a "carpetbagger" since she doesn't yet live in Congressional District 13, which is in PInellas County. But Sink says that she did plenty of work in Pinellas during her tenure with Bank of America, and is no stranger to the community. She has also said that she will soon find a residence there.
As thelatest polls indicate, much of America is disgusted by the failure of Congress to compromise on major policy issues, with the GOP's shutdown of the government in an effort to repeal the ACA the latest and greatest example. When asked why she wants to be elected into an environment which her own D.C. friends call "toxic," Sink replies that it was actually the shutdown itself that inspired her to run.
"I was thinking, ‘We just can’t give up on Congress. We just can’t accept that,''" she said on Monday. "If Congress is going to be a permanently dysfunctional place, then our whole democracy is at risk. And we’ve got to send people there who are committed to fixing it."
Sink is expected to easily win the Democratic primary for the vacant seat in January. She'll then go on to face the GOP nominee in March. The deadline for candidates to qualify for the special election is Tuesday at noon.