Democratic Lawmakers Running for Cover

At WSJ, "As Her Poll Numbers Drop, Sen. Kay Hagan of North Carolina Steps Up Pressure on President Obama to Fix Health Law":

WASHINGTON—After President Barack Obama outlined his health-law retreat Thursday, Sen. Kay Hagan, a Democrat from North Carolina, joined some colleagues in expressing misgivings. "A one-year fix is not enough and we need to do more," she said.

To understand why Democrats are increasingly nervous about the health law, and why Mr. Obama rushed through a patch to calm their anxieties, look no further than Mrs. Hagan, who defeated Sen. Elizabeth Dole in 2008 when the president carried North Carolina.

Up for re-election in 2014, and with her poll numbers tumbling, Mrs. Hagan has emerged as a leader of the Democratic caucus openly criticizing the botched rollout of the Affordable Care Act. In the past month, she has called for extending an enrollment deadline, requested a formal investigation and vented her frustrations personally to the president. She took the rare step of publicizing that exchange after a White House meeting with other Senate Democrats.

Many of the vocally critical Democrats are up for re-election next year, including Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu. She's leading an effort to ensure that people can keep insurance that was canceled as a result of the law, the problem Mr. Obama sought to fix Thursday when he announced a one-year reprieve for that category of plan. Mrs. Hagan backs the Landrieu plan.

The imperative for Mrs. Hagan, however, is particularly acute, and is a warning sign for other incumbents facing voters in the midterms. A new poll this week showed a dramatic narrowing of the North Carolina Senate race that hadn't been particularly close. Americans for Prosperity, an outside group aligned with Republicans, is spending $1.7 million on a television ad criticizing Mrs. Hagan for supporting the health law.

President Obama said that Americans who received insurance cancellation letters will be able to keep those plans, though he urged people to look at other options availble on state and federal marketplaces.

Enrollment Under the Affordable Care Act
See the number of people who have selected a private health insurance plan sold on the new federally run or state-run exchanges in their first month of operations, as well as the number of people deemed eligible for Medicaid, the federal-state health program for the poor that is being expanded in some states.

"If we can get [the health law] rectified between now and the spring, Kay Hagan may be all right," said state Rep. Marvin Lucas, a Democrat from Spring Lake who supports the senator. "If not, she'll be in trouble."

Despite her consistent support for the health law, Mrs. Hagan also has been pushing for years to make changes. She backed a repeal of the 2.3% tax on the sale of medical-devices and co-sponsored a bill to eliminate the 15-person panel to find savings in Medicare.

"My focus has always been working to fix this law, rather than turning the issue into a political football," Mrs. Hagan said in a statement Thursday, responding to a Wall Street Journal request for comment.

Mr. Obama acknowledged the headaches the law was creating for his party. "There is no doubt that our failure to roll out the [Affordable Care Act] smoothly has put a burden on Democrats, whether they're running or not, because they stood up and supported this effort through thick and thin," he said Thursday.

Republicans seeking to topple Mrs. Hagan in next year's midterm elections said she is simply trying to distance herself from a law she helped pass and has supported since.

"Democrats like Kay Hagan weren't being honest when they promised everyone could keep their health plans," said Brook Hougesen, a spokeswoman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the chamber's campaign arm. "Now, in an act of pure political desperation, Hagan is attempting to hide the fact that she was the deciding vote on Obamacare."

A poll released this week by Public Policy Polling, a Democratic firm based in North Carolina, showed that the Republicans vying for the chance to face Mrs. Hagan next year are locked in a statistical dead heat with her. For much of the year, they were trailing by double digits.

The poll also found that 49% of North Carolina voters disapprove of Mrs. Hagan's performance, up 10 percentage points from September. Noting the torrent of attack ads, Tom Jensen, of Public Policy Polling, said, "Watching TV in North Carolina right now, you'd think it was September 2014 instead of November 2013."

Janie Benson, the head of the Democratic Party in Haywood County, acknowledged that the health-law implementation woes have given Republicans ammunition despite some unpopular bills passed by the Republican-controlled state legislature.

Like most other incumbents, Ms. Hagan enters 2014 with a sizable war chest. She had $5.4 million in her campaign account at the end of the September, according to the Federal Election Commission. Her next closest rival, GOP statehouse Speaker Thom Tillis, had $838,000.