5 ms·

A fine example of confirmation bias: ACA aligns with Sam's ideological position, so he hand picks some examples to support it. Don't get me wrong, I think it's

A fine example of confirmation bias: ACA aligns with Sam's ideological position, so he hand picks some examples to support it. Don't get me wrong, I think it's great that people with preexisting conditions can't be denied coverage. But is it OK that plans are three times more expensive now, with three times the deductible? I don't think so. Seems like a trillion dollar money trough for Big Pharma and Big Insurance to me.

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lsiebert 10y ago
Well strictly speaking, if Obama could have passed single payer, he would have. He went with a compromise based on a republican idea and negotiated with the insurers to get their support. The thing is, expensive as it is, you have the ability to get health coverage. The ACA made health care affordable to people who previously couldn't afford it at all, particularly the working poor through medicaid expansions.
- frandroid 10y ago
  > if Obama could have passed single payer But he gave up before even trying. Way to move the Overton window.
  - richieb 10y ago
    LOL. They had to drop the public option just to get the Democrats to in the Senate to vote for the bill. Single payer would not have gotten anywhere. Never mind that it's the Congress that passes bills, not the President.
  - learc83 10y ago
    Because Joe Lieberman refused to support it. Without his support there was no chance of single payer passing.
    - rootusrootus 10y ago
      I think there is a good point here, though. By compromising early and relatively privately, it never became a real topic of conversation amongst normal every day Americans. Maybe if Obama had come out as a fire-breathing liberal supporting single payer ("Medicare for all!") and used his bully pulpit to make everybody hear about it, we could have had a better discussion. Sure, it might have kept the ACA from happening, but maybe in the long run it would have given us better results.
      - learc83 10y ago
        Anytime you make a compromise, there's always the possibility that maybe you could have held out for more.
  - mullen 10y ago
    Obama could not have introduced Single Payer. There is just no political will in the US to do that. None. The medical industry is in one form or another is 1/6th of the US economy, you can't change that overnight.
- TillE 10y ago
  He had two years of full Democratic control of Congress. He didn't even try to get single payer, didn't even try to get the "public option". Obama's disastrous politics are a result of going into every debate starting at the "compromise" position, and then getting dragged further right. Just go back to his 2004 DNC speech, it lays out exactly how he's going to fail.
  - chris11 10y ago
    Joe Lieberman threatened to filibuster any bill that had a public option. We wouldn't have had the votes to pass single payer, even when the Democrats controlled both the House and the Senate.
    - oh_sigh 10y ago
      So let him filibuster and let the whole world judge him.
      - emiliobumachar 10y ago
        I heard Hillary Clinton, when first lady, got a mandate from her husband to lead health-care reform, and tried precisely the strategy of not compromising in the hope that no one would actually vote against universal health care with the world watching. It failed, legislators just voted against it and carried on with their day. No noticeable public blowback against them.
  - favorited 10y ago
    Are you kidding? Harry Reid had to resort to procedural maneuvers to get the ACA passed – single payer would have been laughed out of the room.
  - mikeash 10y ago
    He had just a couple of months of full Democratic control. Due to Al Franken not being seated right away, Robert Byrd being ill, and Ted Kennedy dying, the Democrats didn't have a supermajority until September of 2009. They then lost that supermajority in February 2010 when Scott Brown was sworn in. I do agree that Obama tended to negotiate badly by compromising before it was even needed, but that "two years of full Democratic control" thing gets repeated so often, and it's annoyingly wrong.
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lsiebert 10y ago

Well strictly speaking, if Obama could have passed single payer, he would have. He went with a compromise based on a republican idea and negotiated with the insurers to get their support. The thing is, expensive as it is, you have the ability to get health coverage. The ACA made health care affordable to people who previously couldn't afford it at all, particularly the working poor through medicaid expansions.

frandroid 10y ago
> if Obama could have passed single payer But he gave up before even trying. Way to move the Overton window.
- richieb 10y ago
  LOL. They had to drop the public option just to get the Democrats to in the Senate to vote for the bill. Single payer would not have gotten anywhere. Never mind that it's the Congress that passes bills, not the President.
- learc83 10y ago
  Because Joe Lieberman refused to support it. Without his support there was no chance of single payer passing.
  - rootusrootus 10y ago
    I think there is a good point here, though. By compromising early and relatively privately, it never became a real topic of conversation amongst normal every day Americans. Maybe if Obama had come out as a fire-breathing liberal supporting single payer ("Medicare for all!") and used his bully pulpit to make everybody hear about it, we could have had a better discussion. Sure, it might have kept the ACA from happening, but maybe in the long run it would have given us better results.
    - learc83 10y ago
      Anytime you make a compromise, there's always the possibility that maybe you could have held out for more.
- mullen 10y ago
  Obama could not have introduced Single Payer. There is just no political will in the US to do that. None. The medical industry is in one form or another is 1/6th of the US economy, you can't change that overnight.
TillE 10y ago
He had two years of full Democratic control of Congress. He didn't even try to get single payer, didn't even try to get the "public option". Obama's disastrous politics are a result of going into every debate starting at the "compromise" position, and then getting dragged further right. Just go back to his 2004 DNC speech, it lays out exactly how he's going to fail.
- chris11 10y ago
  Joe Lieberman threatened to filibuster any bill that had a public option. We wouldn't have had the votes to pass single payer, even when the Democrats controlled both the House and the Senate.
  - oh_sigh 10y ago
    So let him filibuster and let the whole world judge him.
    - emiliobumachar 10y ago
      I heard Hillary Clinton, when first lady, got a mandate from her husband to lead health-care reform, and tried precisely the strategy of not compromising in the hope that no one would actually vote against universal health care with the world watching. It failed, legislators just voted against it and carried on with their day. No noticeable public blowback against them.
- favorited 10y ago
  Are you kidding? Harry Reid had to resort to procedural maneuvers to get the ACA passed – single payer would have been laughed out of the room.
- mikeash 10y ago
  He had just a couple of months of full Democratic control. Due to Al Franken not being seated right away, Robert Byrd being ill, and Ted Kennedy dying, the Democrats didn't have a supermajority until September of 2009. They then lost that supermajority in February 2010 when Scott Brown was sworn in. I do agree that Obama tended to negotiate badly by compromising before it was even needed, but that "two years of full Democratic control" thing gets repeated so often, and it's annoyingly wrong.

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