The Real Reason Republicans Couldn't Kill Obamacare (a must read)

[Bleacher Creature]

This article is phenomenal. There's no way I'd be able do it justice by summarizing it here, so I'll just encourage everyone to read it.

Link to tweet

[Hekate]

1. Thanks. Had to scroll down quite a ways to get to the relevant tweet, but it's very good...

Here’s the link to The Atlantic article, non-Tweet version
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/03/why-trump-republicans-failed-repeal-obamacare/618337/

[GP6971]

2. Excellent read. n/t

[crickets]

3. Fantastic article. Well worth the read. K&R

[Hortensis]

4. This IS a must-read. About how government works and what Democrats are.

Lambrew knew firsthand what most of the Republicans didn’t: Passing big pieces of legislation is a lot harder than it looks.

It demands unglamorous, grinding work to figure out the precise contours of rules, spending, and revenue necessary to accomplish your goal. It requires methodical building of alliances, endless negotiations among hostile factions, and making painful compromises on cherished ideals. Most of all, it requires seriousness of purpose—a deep belief that you are working toward some kind of better world—in order to sustain those efforts when the task seems hopeless.

Democrats had that sense of mission and went through all of those exercises because they’d spent nearly a century crusading for universal coverage. It was a big reason they were able to pass their once-in-a-generation health-care legislation. Republicans didn’t undertake the same sorts of efforts. Nor did they develop a clear sense of what they were trying to achieve, except to hack away at the welfare state and destroy Obama’s legacy. Those are big reasons their legislation failed.

Obamacare’s survival says a lot about the differences between the two parties nowadays, and not just on health care. It’s a sign of how different they have become, in temperament as much as ideology, and why one has shown that it’s capable of governing and the other has nearly forgotten how.

One thing that surprises me is no mention of Nancy Pelosi, who was Speaker of the House (!) from January 2007 to 2011, all during the great, prolonged battle to write and pass the ACA into law. Other accounts I've read said no one was more responsible for the ACA passing in its surviving form than Pelosi.

This is Boehner posturing by a deceptive pile of paper representing some 5000 administrative regulations added to the ACA after passage of the bill. A factchecker estimates that they would "only" amount to about 10,000 pages. Finalizing the culmination of years of work by the many dedicated to creating a national healthcare system.



After that great achievement, Pelosi was going to retire in 2016 at the age of 76, leaving the ACA and future developments safely in the hands of President HRC and her own successor; but like Lambrew, when the Republicans took control Pelosi stayed on, as house minority leader, to, above all, protect the ACA. And of course, in January 2019 when Democrats gained control of the house, and Pelosi once again became Speaker, all opportunities for the Republicans to continue to use congress to gut it further were over.

(Somewhere in there are the HIPAA regulations I had to take a class and get a certification for.)