Of course, it’s possible that the entire thing is about to become void in a few minutes anyway (see Allahpundit’s open thread for more on that), but just because it so thoroughly highlights the progressive hypocrisy/bum-covering going on all over the place, here you go: On Wednesday, Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley (who is up for reelection in 2014, hem hem) really got the Democrats’ ObamaCare panic-party going in full swing when he announced that he intends to co-sponsor Sen. Landreiu’s [unworkable] version of emergency “keep your plan” legislation. Here’s his reasoning, via The Oregonian:

In a telephone interview, Merkley said that he and other supporters of the 2010 law failed to understand that it didn’t have strong enough “grandfather” provisions ensuring that people could keep policies that existed at the time.

“It was a significant failure to understand that the grandfathering had this flaw in it,” said Merkley, “and now that it’s recognized, we’ve got to fix it.”

The senator added that “we just didn’t fully understand” that during the three years before the new law went completely into effect, many people would migrate to other coverage or be forced off these grandfathered plans. …

“Let’s fix it for the couple percent” that are facing cancellations, Merkley said, “but let’s not forget that for the other 95-plus percent, all kinds of positive impacts are happening to our health care system.”

…How did he ‘fail to understand,’ not only that the “grandfathering had this flaw in it,” but that it is indeed not a flaw at all? Did he and all of the other Democrats currently feigning surprise, befuddlement, and indignation really not understand that the law must force people to pay more for health insurance they don’t necessarily want/need in order to cover some of the costs of higher-risk participants? Because that’s kind of the point. As Jim Geraghty notes at NRO, there were any number of very vociferous voices aptly warning that all of this would happen, to which Democrats willfully chose not to listen.