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The ACA was a repackaging of Massachusetts' "RomneyCare" that was passed by Republicans in that state. The reason this legislature was chosen was because it was

The ACA was a repackaging of Massachusetts' "RomneyCare" that was passed by Republicans in that state. The reason this legislature was chosen was because it was thought to be a bipartisan solution to rising healthcare costs.

povertyworld 7y ago
That's why no one believes the Democrats when they run on fixing healthcare. They already had a chance to fix healthcare a decade ago, and they gave us a healthcare program from a rightwing thing tank. Wow, all the downvotes have made me realize that I really can trust Joe Biden after all! Thanks for opening my eyes to the glory of the DNC bros!
- darpa_escapee 7y ago
  You don't believe Democrats because they compromised with Republicans to get a bill passed? If you recall, Republicans used the filibuster in the Senate, which meant Democrats needed a 60 vote supermajority to get a healthcare bill passed. When they floated the idea of a Medicare-for-all bill, Republicans promised to filibuster in the Senate. Democrats compromised with Republicans on policy that Republicans wrote themselves, and Republicans still filibustered and not a single one of them voted in favor of it.
  - povertyworld 7y ago
    If not a single Republican voted for it that means the bill is entirely the responsibility of the Democrats. It is a bill created and passed exclusively by Democrats. The Democrats passed a Republican plan without one Republican vote. The Democrats had a filibuster proof supermajority, and they decided to pass Mitt Romney's healthcare plan. But it's all the Republicans fault. Obama didn't even try for a public option like he had promised during the campaign.
    - apathy 7y ago
      Independent. The 60th vote was an independent who endorsed John McCain in preference to Obama. How can one person manage to be so consistently incorrect?
    - shims 7y ago
      > If not a single Republican voted for it that means the bill is entirely the responsibility of the Democrats. Every Democrat in the Senate voted for it, including two independents.
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  The Democrats didn’t have the power to pass it by themselves, hence needing to compromise.
  - povertyworld 7y ago
    It passed with not one vote from Republicans, so there was no need to compromise. Will your fake news post be downvoted? Of course not.
    - apathy 7y ago
      Remind us who tanked the public option in the ACA? Hint: he was Al Gore’s running mate a decade prior. And he was never a republican.
      - povertyworld 7y ago
        So you're blaming Al Gore's running mate for the ACA being crap and this is supposed to convince me the Democrats can be trusted on healthcare? Ok.
    - ravitation 7y ago
      You're just wrong. Just because no republicans voted for it doesn't mean that enormous compromise was necessary to get certain independents and conservative democrats to vote for it, which is exactly what happened. The entire legislative approach to the ACA was to get a 60 vote filibuster-proof majority in the Senate (and subsequently to prevent the bill from returning to the Senate because of changes made by the House), in a Senate that only had 58 democrats.
javagram 7y ago
> Massachusetts' "RomneyCare" that was passed by Republicans in that state FYI RomneyCare was passed by a supermajority of Democrats in the MA state legislature. They negotiated some parts with Governor Romney but the reform was not a “republican idea”. ObamaCare in general was not a republican plan - it was a moderate Democrat plan.
- learc83 7y ago
  The central idea, the individual mandate, came from a 1989 lecture by Stuart Butler, an economist at the conservative Heritage foundation. It originated as a conservative alternative to socialized healthcare.
  - javagram 7y ago
    But in politics, the idea was pushed by democrats. The idea that Republicans came up with RomneyCare is simply false, it never would have happened if the Republican Party controlled Massachusetts. Look at actual republican controlled states and you can see what they did on health care pre-ACA and it was pretty much nothing. People at conservative think tanks coming up with an idea doesn’t make it “republican”. In reality the party ignores many things that the heritage foundation or various other foundations or think tanks say, they’re much more focused on politics than on ideas. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_health_care_reform#Reform_coalitions https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_health_care_re...
    - learc83 7y ago
      The Heritage Foundation is the flagship conservative think tank, Republican and conservative are synonymous in popular usage, so yeah I think it's safe to call their proposals Republican proposals despite the fact the party can't actually enact all of them. And if we skip ahead 4 years to 1993, a Republican Senator introduced, a bill with 20 Republican co-sponsors including Bob Dole, Orrin Hatch, and Charles Grassley called the HEART bill. That bill included an individual mandate, vouchers for low income individuals, and protection for prexisting conditions. Not all Republicans supported this plan, but almost half of the Republican Senators including most of the leadership supported it. I'd call that a Republican plan--a plan based squarely on the proposal from the heritage foundation.

povertyworld 7y ago

That's why no one believes the Democrats when they run on fixing healthcare. They already had a chance to fix healthcare a decade ago, and they gave us a healthcare program from a rightwing thing tank. Wow, all the downvotes have made me realize that I really can trust Joe Biden after all! Thanks for opening my eyes to the glory of the DNC bros!

darpa_escapee 7y ago
You don't believe Democrats because they compromised with Republicans to get a bill passed? If you recall, Republicans used the filibuster in the Senate, which meant Democrats needed a 60 vote supermajority to get a healthcare bill passed. When they floated the idea of a Medicare-for-all bill, Republicans promised to filibuster in the Senate. Democrats compromised with Republicans on policy that Republicans wrote themselves, and Republicans still filibustered and not a single one of them voted in favor of it.
- povertyworld 7y ago
  If not a single Republican voted for it that means the bill is entirely the responsibility of the Democrats. It is a bill created and passed exclusively by Democrats. The Democrats passed a Republican plan without one Republican vote. The Democrats had a filibuster proof supermajority, and they decided to pass Mitt Romney's healthcare plan. But it's all the Republicans fault. Obama didn't even try for a public option like he had promised during the campaign.
  - apathy 7y ago
    Independent. The 60th vote was an independent who endorsed John McCain in preference to Obama. How can one person manage to be so consistently incorrect?
  - shims 7y ago
    > If not a single Republican voted for it that means the bill is entirely the responsibility of the Democrats. Every Democrat in the Senate voted for it, including two independents.
lotsofpulp 7y ago
The Democrats didn’t have the power to pass it by themselves, hence needing to compromise.
- povertyworld 7y ago
  It passed with not one vote from Republicans, so there was no need to compromise. Will your fake news post be downvoted? Of course not.
  - apathy 7y ago
    Remind us who tanked the public option in the ACA? Hint: he was Al Gore’s running mate a decade prior. And he was never a republican.
    - povertyworld 7y ago
      So you're blaming Al Gore's running mate for the ACA being crap and this is supposed to convince me the Democrats can be trusted on healthcare? Ok.
  - ravitation 7y ago
    You're just wrong. Just because no republicans voted for it doesn't mean that enormous compromise was necessary to get certain independents and conservative democrats to vote for it, which is exactly what happened. The entire legislative approach to the ACA was to get a 60 vote filibuster-proof majority in the Senate (and subsequently to prevent the bill from returning to the Senate because of changes made by the House), in a Senate that only had 58 democrats.

javagram 7y ago

> Massachusetts' "RomneyCare" that was passed by Republicans in that state FYI RomneyCare was passed by a supermajority of Democrats in the MA state legislature. They negotiated some parts with Governor Romney but the reform was not a “republican idea”. ObamaCare in general was not a republican plan - it was a moderate Democrat plan.

learc83 7y ago
The central idea, the individual mandate, came from a 1989 lecture by Stuart Butler, an economist at the conservative Heritage foundation. It originated as a conservative alternative to socialized healthcare.
- javagram 7y ago
  But in politics, the idea was pushed by democrats. The idea that Republicans came up with RomneyCare is simply false, it never would have happened if the Republican Party controlled Massachusetts. Look at actual republican controlled states and you can see what they did on health care pre-ACA and it was pretty much nothing. People at conservative think tanks coming up with an idea doesn’t make it “republican”. In reality the party ignores many things that the heritage foundation or various other foundations or think tanks say, they’re much more focused on politics than on ideas. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_health_care_reform#Reform_coalitions https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_health_care_re...
  - learc83 7y ago
    The Heritage Foundation is the flagship conservative think tank, Republican and conservative are synonymous in popular usage, so yeah I think it's safe to call their proposals Republican proposals despite the fact the party can't actually enact all of them. And if we skip ahead 4 years to 1993, a Republican Senator introduced, a bill with 20 Republican co-sponsors including Bob Dole, Orrin Hatch, and Charles Grassley called the HEART bill. That bill included an individual mandate, vouchers for low income individuals, and protection for prexisting conditions. Not all Republicans supported this plan, but almost half of the Republican Senators including most of the leadership supported it. I'd call that a Republican plan--a plan based squarely on the proposal from the heritage foundation.