Perhaps it is poor timing. The flip side is a lot of these things have been languishing for years with no one willing to approach volatile issues that are way past needing change but a political and PR mindfield. Change is tough and probably the most difficult thing in life for human beings.
Business as usual has not worked in some of the issues, especially healthcare. Whoever decided to address these things was in for a rough ride and condemation from opponents. With massive failures of multiple arms of our system it is time to make some adjustmants and no one is immune from some of the pain (except perhaps members of congress)as we as a people have deal with the the missteps and mistakes of the past that we all tolerated as long as the financial picture was holding up. There is no way everyone will be happy because the old way of doing things has to change, and we will all end up sacraficing to some degree to right the ship.