> The ACA needed a parallel side to the legislation that aggressively attacked medical price inflation: taking on medical liability insurance reform, forcing pr

> The ACA needed a parallel side to the legislation that aggressively attacked medical price inflation: taking on medical liability insurance reform, forcing price transparency across the entire medical system, fixing in-network vs out-network blackholes, etc. Most of the text of the ACA attempted to do exactly that. The problem is that there are no simple answers, the rhetoric notwithstanding. The ACA created rules and processes built around consensus advice for controlling costs, but predictably the results were more meager than the rhetoric and studies claimed. But it was always understood that would likely happen. Much of the ACA also included data acquisition and feedback mechanisms that would feed into both regulatory committees and into subsequent reform legislation. But the GOP stonewalled both mechanisms. Remember, their sole desire was repeal. Replace or even supplement was never on the table for most of the past 12 years, and offered proposals were never made in good faith because they were always patently deficient.[1] To the extent the ACA has failed (and that's debatable because people have very rose-colored glasses about the previous state of affairs), it's because it was deliberately sabotaged. [1] For example, prohibiting denial for preexisting conditions but removing the universal mandate is patently not fiscally viable! Certainly not without a hefty tax increase to reimburse insurers, a process (temporary under ACA) which the GOP also subverted. That's not even Econ 101, but Kindergarten Econ.