Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) vowed Wednesday that Democrats would pay a heavy price at the ballot box this November if they succeed in passing a final health care bill through reconciliation and said Republicans would do everything in their power to stop them.

McConnell, responding to President Barack Obama’s speech on health care Wednesday, tried to make the case that the public is opposed to the Democratic health care agenda. “This is really not an argument between Democrats and Republicans. It’s an argument between Democrats and the American people,” McConnell told reporters shortly after Obama completed a White House speech urging Democrats to take an up-or-down vote and get him a health care bill within the next few weeks.

“They’re making a vigorous effort to jam this down the throats of the American people that don’t want it,” McConnell said. “We think that’s a policy mistake, and we think resorting to these kind of tactics to thumb your nose at the American people is something that ought to be resisted.”

Health care has been stalled in the Senate since late January, when the GOP picked up the additional seat they needed to sustain a filibuster of health care.