An open letter to Sen. Jeff Merkley:

Obamacare was passed in 2010 by Democrats through legislative sleight of hand without a single supporting Republican vote. Moreover, it took special considerations for selected senators to get their vote and the vote of every Democrat senator. Therefore, every Democrat senator, including you, must take singular responsibility for its passage.

Nancy Pelosi, when House Speaker, famously said, “We have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it.”

Max Baucus, a major architect of Obamacare, stated in a Senate hearing on April 17, 2013, “I just see a huge train wreck coming down.”

Well, the Democrats passed it, and we’ve found out what’s in it: we have the continuing disastrous roll out — the train wreck predicted by Baucus is unfolding before our eyes; the total lack of Internet security with the website; the fact that more people have had their health care coverage canceled than have obtained new health care coverage and the arguably illegal administrative changes being made by the president.

For your part, there are many questions that need to be answered for your constituents.

• Why, when you were on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee working on the bill, did you and the Democrats on the committee reject all Republican efforts toward developing a bipartisan healthcare reform bill and disregard suggestions, such as allowing insurance to be sold across state lines, instituting tort reform and many other valid suggestions?

• Obamacare appears to be the interim step to a single payer system. Do you favor a single payer healthcare system? If so, why do you think it would work, considering the multitude of problems with Obamacare, the absolute inability of the Department of Health and Human Services to administer the current program and the problems within the IRS?

• Why do you believe that it was necessary for the Democrats to pass Obamacare, which takes over one-sixth of the American economy and forces 84.6 percent of the people in the country who already have health insurance to buy insurance plans that most of them do not want in order to insure the 15.4 percent (2012 Census Bureau report) of the country that is uninsured, many that way through choice? There are many free market ways to get this 15.4 percent insured without massive intrusion by the government.

• Why did you resist recent Republican efforts to delay implementation of Obamacare with your no votes (which caused the government to shut down) and then cosponsor the Landrieu bill to accomplish the same thing? According to a Bulletin reporter, you said that “we are seeking partners across the aisle?” Why are you doing this now? Is it because Obamacare is in trouble?

• You were on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and should have known what was in the bill. What happened to, “If you like your plan you can keep your plan”? What do you say to those who are losing their healthcare plans, those whose premiums have significantly increased and those whose lives have been turned upside down?

Lost in all in the discussion is the unalterable fact that Obamacare is basically a vehicle for the redistribution of income. From the New York Times on Nov. 23, 2013: redistribution “is particularly toxic at the White House, where it has been hidden away to make the Affordable Care Act more palatable to the public … the redistribution of wealth has always been a central feature of the law and lies at the heart of the insurance market disruptions driving political attacks this fall.”

Moreover, the law is a “one size fits all” requiring people to buy coverage they don’t need and that they would not buy otherwise. The law is fundamentally flawed. It can’t be made to work, as suggested by the Jan. 17 In My View “ACA meets a political reality.” The only solution is to repeal Obamacare and start over using tried and true free market principles.

What say you?

— Keith Sime lives in Sunriver.