BOSTON Three years after it split Massachusetts voters in the 2010 special U.S. Senate election, the debate over President Barack Obamas health care law has lost little of its political punch.

Of the five candidates vying to fill the seat left vacant by John Kerrys resignation, just one has offered a full-throated defense of the law. Democratic U.S. Rep. Edward Markey has described his vote for the Affordable Care Act as the proudest vote of my career.

Markeys primary opponent, fellow Democratic U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch, voted against the bill and continues to point to what he says are serious flaws. But Lynch has stopped short of calling for its repeal.

The three Republicans in the race former U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan, Norfolk state Rep. Daniel Winslow and Cohasset businessman Gabriel Gomez are all strong critics of the law.

Sullivan and Gomez say they support repealing the law; Winslow says hed push to give states a chance to opt out of it.

The jousting is more vigorous on the Democratic side.

Lynch has described the 2010 law as a giveaway to the insurance industry. He said the decision to abandon a proposed public option that would have created government insurance plans that could have competed with private plans ended up benefiting insurance companies even as the law requires tens of millions of Americans to obtain health insurance.

What the insurance companies wanted, they wanted 31 million new customers. We gave them everything they wanted, Lynch said in a recent debate. It was like a hostage situation where we not only paid the ransom, but we let the insurance companies keep the hostages.

Lynch also said the law includes so many new taxes that employers are running away from their health care obligations.

Markey said that when Lynch had a chance to cast a vote for the broadest expansion of health care in generations a decades-long Democratic quest he sided with Republicans.

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