“I voted against the bill because on the whole I believe, and I still believe, that it did more harm than good,” Altmire said on Fox News Thursday. “But there is no reason that the repeal has to be structured in a way that you literally throw the baby out with the bath water.”

Key moderate Democrats in both the Senate and the House have begun to stake out this position.

Sen. Joe Manchin, the newly elected West Virginia Democrat whose key campaign ad showed him literally shooting the cap-and-trade bill passed by the House, announced Friday he is cosponsoring a provision to repeal a portion of the health-care bill that creates onerous new tax reporting requirements for small business, known as the 1099 provision.