Bill Moyers: Republicans stalked Obamacare 'like Jack The Ripper'

The criticism surrounding the Affordable Care Act did not come out of nowhere, Bill Moyers argued in a commentary on Friday, nor is it without historical precedent.

"This happened back in the thirties, after Congress passed Social Security, but failed to sufficiently fund the board that was supposed to run it," Moyers said on Moyers & Company on Friday. "Republican opponents of ObamaCare have gone further. After it passed they stalked it like Jack The Ripper. In the states, through the courts, all the way to the Supreme Court, which, uh-oh, ruled it constitutional. In last year's election, when they lost again. But quit? Never. For Republicans, this has become their Alamo."

And it was House Republicans, Moyers said, who refused to provide enough funding to maximize the efficiency of the law's implementation, giving them the opportunity to complain about its performance since.

But he also criticized President Barack Obama for backing away from the single-payer option he endorsed as a candidate under a filibuster threat from Senate Democrats, specifically Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT).

"Rube Goldberg would have been a very happy man," Moyers observed His principle -- 'Why do something simple when it can always be made harder?' -- carried the day. And by the time it became law the Affordable Care Act was a monstrosity of complexity."

Watch Moyers' commentary, aired on Friday, below.