> ... sterling example of the "worst of all solutions" espoused by the Democrats. Instead of simply raising everyone's taxes to pay for public services ... Nop

> ... sterling example of the "worst of all solutions" espoused by the Democrats. Instead of simply raising everyone's taxes to pay for public services ... Nope, I'm not letting this slide by. The Democrats did try to do exactly what you propose in the 90s. If it had worked, we would've had a first-world health care system two decades ago. But it was screamed down by the Republican Congress with the usual taxes-liberty-communism-Stalin rhetoric. The ACA was intended as an improvement over the nightmare we had pre-2010 that was still digestible to Republicans. Remember: it's fundamentally a Republican idea. It's similar to what Gingrich proposed as a counter to Clinton's plan (which is what really boils my blood about conservation opposition to it), and it's more-or-less identical to what Romney implemented when he was governor of Massachusetts. So yes, the ACA is a "worst of all worlds" compromise, and of course it sucks. Almost all the Democrats I know agree that it should be scrapped and replaced by a single-payer system tomorrow. But since that doesn't seem likely to happen, the ACA is what we've got. And your blaming of the Democrats for the failure of a Republican idea implemented because the Democrat's much better idea isn't politically possible is despicable and disingenuous in the extreme.