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In retrospect, Obama seems to have made a terrible mistake with the Obamacare framework. He made the original sin of acquiescing that there would be no single p

In retrospect, Obama seems to have made a terrible mistake with the Obamacare framework. He made the original sin of acquiescing that there would be no single payer, thereby relinquishing his only true leverage over an obstinate Senate clinging to a skin Democratic majority. The compromise was not a good one. It never made great sense for any of the parties. It was a victory of pragmatism over function, and no Republican voted for it anyway.

DoreenMichele 5y ago
And yet now this accidental experiment exists because of Obamacare which settles a longstanding debate in the US as to whether healthcare coverage actually saves lives -- while Europeans go "Well, duh? Why was this ever a question?"
- lostcolony 5y ago
  Yeah, but had he not compromised and instead just pushed through a single payer solution ("medicare for all"), it would have passed along the same lines, given us the same data, and have been harder for Republicans to gut since it would have given no individual mandate, or high priced low coverage marketplace plans, to attack.
  - ckw 5y ago
    He didn’t support a single payer system or a public option, he just made mouth noises to that effect. Look at the recent failure in California to bring a single payer bill to a vote, despite the Governor’s ostensible support and Democrats’ 75% super majority in the Senate. Perennial incompetence isn’t a plausible explanation; rank corruption is. Edit: to add a bit of evidence that Obama specifically is corrupt, here is an article titled ‘Barack Obama Got Paid $400,000 for a Speech to Health Care Execs. Here's What He Told Them’: https://money.com/barack-obama-speech-400000-health-care-conference/ https://money.com/barack-obama-speech-400000-health-care-con... How is that anything but a payoff?
    - scarface74 5y ago
      I don’t get it. The same article said he made $60 million from a book deal. $400K is a nothing burger. He would have made money from the speaking circuit regardless.
      - ckw 5y ago
        I don’t understand, you say $400k is nothing, but then say he would have made money from the speaking circuit regardless, as if he didn’t do just that, and as if taking vast sums from powerful corporate interests whose interests he’d manifestly served during his time in office isn’t the definition of corruption. I’ve read claims that he makes about 50 speeches per year, which seems plausible, given that Bill and Hillary Clinton made 729 speeches between 2001 and 2016 for a total of $153 million ($210k average). See: https://www.cnn.com/2016/02/05/politics/hillary-clinton-bill-clinton-paid-speeches/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2016/02/05/politics/hillary-clinton-bill... I want to go back to the $400k speech to the healthcare industry. First, the notion that this isn’t corruption because he made so much more money in a less unseemly manner is pretty curious. Does it not then follow that the very rich, so long as their original fortunes are not ill gotten, are incapable of corruption in principle ? Second, $400k is precisely the annual salary of the President(!). For maybe an hour of work. It’s not just egregious, it’s super on the nose. Third, imagine he’d put every bit of political capital at his disposal into the fight to create a single payer system, and against the odds (and the money of those executives to whom he gave the speech) succeeded. Do you think the healthcare industry (or the part that’d still exist) would still pay $400k for an hour of his time?
        scarface74 5y ago
        He had no political capital against the lobbyist who had the democrats in their pocket too. Clinton also tried passing health care reform with a Democratic majority and failed miserably. At least Obama got something passed. Now, even though I personally would pay a decent chunk of change for health care if I decided to go into independent consulting, at least it’s an option now. It wasn’t before. He would have made money on the speaking circuit from some group of people regardless of what he did.

DoreenMichele 5y ago

And yet now this accidental experiment exists because of Obamacare which settles a longstanding debate in the US as to whether healthcare coverage actually saves lives -- while Europeans go "Well, duh? Why was this ever a question?"

lostcolony 5y ago
Yeah, but had he not compromised and instead just pushed through a single payer solution ("medicare for all"), it would have passed along the same lines, given us the same data, and have been harder for Republicans to gut since it would have given no individual mandate, or high priced low coverage marketplace plans, to attack.
- ckw 5y ago
  He didn’t support a single payer system or a public option, he just made mouth noises to that effect. Look at the recent failure in California to bring a single payer bill to a vote, despite the Governor’s ostensible support and Democrats’ 75% super majority in the Senate. Perennial incompetence isn’t a plausible explanation; rank corruption is. Edit: to add a bit of evidence that Obama specifically is corrupt, here is an article titled ‘Barack Obama Got Paid $400,000 for a Speech to Health Care Execs. Here's What He Told Them’: https://money.com/barack-obama-speech-400000-health-care-conference/ https://money.com/barack-obama-speech-400000-health-care-con... How is that anything but a payoff?
  - scarface74 5y ago
    I don’t get it. The same article said he made $60 million from a book deal. $400K is a nothing burger. He would have made money from the speaking circuit regardless.
    - ckw 5y ago
      I don’t understand, you say $400k is nothing, but then say he would have made money from the speaking circuit regardless, as if he didn’t do just that, and as if taking vast sums from powerful corporate interests whose interests he’d manifestly served during his time in office isn’t the definition of corruption. I’ve read claims that he makes about 50 speeches per year, which seems plausible, given that Bill and Hillary Clinton made 729 speeches between 2001 and 2016 for a total of $153 million ($210k average). See: https://www.cnn.com/2016/02/05/politics/hillary-clinton-bill-clinton-paid-speeches/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2016/02/05/politics/hillary-clinton-bill... I want to go back to the $400k speech to the healthcare industry. First, the notion that this isn’t corruption because he made so much more money in a less unseemly manner is pretty curious. Does it not then follow that the very rich, so long as their original fortunes are not ill gotten, are incapable of corruption in principle ? Second, $400k is precisely the annual salary of the President(!). For maybe an hour of work. It’s not just egregious, it’s super on the nose. Third, imagine he’d put every bit of political capital at his disposal into the fight to create a single payer system, and against the odds (and the money of those executives to whom he gave the speech) succeeded. Do you think the healthcare industry (or the part that’d still exist) would still pay $400k for an hour of his time?
      - scarface74 5y ago
        He had no political capital against the lobbyist who had the democrats in their pocket too. Clinton also tried passing health care reform with a Democratic majority and failed miserably. At least Obama got something passed. Now, even though I personally would pay a decent chunk of change for health care if I decided to go into independent consulting, at least it’s an option now. It wasn’t before. He would have made money on the speaking circuit from some group of people regardless of what he did.