Had an insight on ACA by analogy with an entirely different subject.

Many thought the Camp David Accord was the first step in bringing peace to the ME. Instead, as it was manipulated by Israel, which got its intended outcome, CDA turned out to be exactly the opposite: brought nothing but more strife & wars to ME & Israel comes out on top every time. (Well, almost every time.)

I think ACA might be exactly that. Instead of being a starting step at expanding medical benefits, it might very well turn out to be the opposite.

It, like most of the legislation we’re subjected to, is misnamed. It neither addresses affordable, quality health “care” nor does it rein in insurance costs. It does succeed in guaranteeing an expanded customer base for the private insurance industry.

If only the “Affordable Care Act” made health care affordable, it might be more popular.

Public approval of ACA plummeted when the Medicare buy in, AKA “Robust Public Option” was beaten to death by Obama, Baucus, Nelson, Lieberman and other Democrat Corporatists.
It is just what Echan suggests.. the opposite of what it was presented to be.
Now it will be years before we get a health care payment system that is not just a profit making enterprise for the insurance comapany sharks.
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The ACA basically entrenched everything that was wrong with our health care delivery system without addressing the actual problems. Only a totally corrupt government would call this reform.

This is, I think, where the kind of identitarian philosophy of liberalism has gotten us: to the point where we’re looking over our shoulders at everyone rather than acting in pursuit of solidarity or the commonwealth. Conservatives have plugged right into it, too, only they just hate a little more. But I have been hearing a lot of muttering from liberal friends the last few years about their differences from Black people, etc. (“They’re just not interested in our neighborhood events!”) WE MUST BE WILLING TO SACRIFICE FOR ONE ANOTHER.

What if class perspectives were substituted for them, for this endless (an)atomization of the polity? You bet we’d be wringing some rich people’s throats today, carting some of these styleless soulless mofos off to prison. . . It’s terrifying that you can conduct a poll like this, where we’re all regretting the collective PENNIES spent on helping people, when BILLIONS are being spent to bail out a**holes who continue to collect their bonuses; the disconnect is extraordinary, and nearly universal.

Certainly can’t argue that.

WOW! Certainly can’t argue that EITHER.

I suppose that’s a “blog hat trick”.

Kudos my colleagues.

A law that a plurality of Americans think will make them personally worse off is simply never going to very popular as long as they believe that.

That’s kind of a “glass pretty damn empty” analysis, dontcha think Jon? :-)

Matthew, you make me want to get a bigger dictionary. :-)

Glad to see you back, missed your commenting. Did you take a few days off?

“Will this unpopular law help a little bit or not at all?” is the wrong question. (And make no mistake, the Affordable Care Act is unpopular for a reason. We were promised a public option.) The question that we should be asking is: “Why can’t we just dispense with private insurance altogether?” As long as the debate is framed in defeatist terms (“Okay, folks, we’ve got this horrible, glued-together mess that the Obama administration calls health care reform and we’re going to settle for it–now, let’s see if we can find a beneficial crumb or two in there!”), things are never going to get better.

Short answer. The people who write and enact our laws are those who are not required to obey them and legislate to benefit themselves and their corporate masters.

I understand that. My point is that I’m downright dismayed at the lack of anger I’ve seen on the left in response to the ACA. Particularly since SCOTUS upheld the mandate, people seem pathetically, deliriously grateful rather than angry.

These are the same people that either condone or applaud illegal drone murders, illegal kinetic military actions, unjustified economic sanctions, the absence of prosecutions for bank fraud and/or war crimes, and the destruction of the social safety net as long as it is done by a puppet branding themselves with a “D”. They are faux liberals/progressives that will rationalize any action as good, as long as the policy was implemented by someone on their “team”. They’re willfully ignorant, partisan lemmings.

Sadly, I couldn’t agree more. I’ve debated/argued with them for years and watched in unbelieving horror as these faux lefties cheered policies enacted by Obama that they would have screamed and raved about had they been enacted by the previous administration.

If the Democrats truly were an oppositional party, they would make the Republicans pay a political price for their bad ideas instead of adopting them as their own.

More “heads you lose, tails we win” fake politics. You don’t become an advocate for your opponent’s unpopular and bad ideas unless you’re in on the fix.

By failing to put their necks on the line for Universal Health care and adopting the Republican plan without a fight, Obama and his wrecking crew created the Tea Party.

Where else did the Democrats expect the conservatives to go, but further to the right? Did the Democrats honestly think that rubber-stamping the Republican plan would placate the conservatives?

If you play it straight, and pretend that we have two oppositional parties, you must conclude that the Democrats are horribly, horribly inept and incompetent.

I call BS. A real Democrat such as FDR or LBJ would not have squandered the political opportunity that was created by GFC, and would have lead the country to universal health care.

Very apt comparison.

The old Republican brand was of a party committed to the long-term goal of destroying the New Deal. Long-term being the operative word.

The ACA allowed the Republicans to distance themselves from “moderate” Romneycare, and allowed for plans to kill the remaining aspects of the New Deal & Great Society to be significantly sped up and emboldened.