Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W. Va.) said Thursday he would support a House Republican plan that would impose a one-year delay of the individual mandate provision of the Affordable Care Act.
The red state Democrat said he would be willing to break with his party on the measure, calling the idea "sensible," Bloomberg reports:
"There’s no way I could not vote for it," Manchin said at a Bloomberg Government breakfast today. "It’s very reasonable and sensible." [...]
Manchin, 66, said he’d be willing to delay the individual mandate as part of the budget negotiations because the Obama administration in July gave businesses an extra year to provide their workers with health insurance.
"Don’t put the mandate on the American public right now," Manchin said. "Give them at least a year. If you know you couldn’t bring the corporate sector, you gave them a year, don’t you think it’d be fair?"