“I think we paid a terrible price for healthcare,” Frank told the magazine in a lengthy interview as he prepares to retire at the end of his 16th term. “I would not have pushed it as hard. As a matter of fact, after [Sen.] Scott Brown [R-Mass.] won [in January 2010], I suggested going back. I would have started with financial reform, but certainly not healthcare.”…

“When you try to extend healthcare to people who don’t have it, people who have it and are on the whole satisfied with it get nervous,” Frank said. “The problem with healthcare is this: Healthcare is enormously important to people. When you tell them that you’re going to extend healthcare to people who don’t now have it, they don’t see how you can do that without hurting them. So I think he underestimated, as did Clinton, the sensitivity of people to what they see as an effort to make them share the healthcare with poor people.”