2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: The Democratic Primary Ruined My Friendship! [View all]I was one of the ones who were saying in 2010, while the Democratic Party was lecturing us that a) the ACA was just the first step on the road to single-payer, b) that it would save Congress for the Democrats in the 2010 midterms, c) that once the ACA was in effect, and people were experiencing the clear benefits of it, public opinion would turn in favor of it to validate it, and d) that because of c), it would thereafter be politically suicidal for the Republican Party to try to repeal it, that the opposite of each point was true.
It was an ineptly constructed Republican health care plan from the 1990s, passed not by taking on the private health insurance industry (which is the problem itself) but by co-opting them in its writing. Having passed a Republican plan with no Republican votes, now the Democratic Party owns it lock, stock and barrel.
Here we are in 2016, and how did the points above work out?
a) The Democratic candidate the party is lined up behind and tried to clear the field for is holding up the ACA as the reason single-payer is impossible, and in making the case against it regurgitates Republican talking points (Eek! Taxes! Not going to mention the savings of the elimination of private health insurance costs!)
b) The Democrats had a historic slaughter in the 2010 midterms
c) The ACA has been underwater in public opinion since Day One because, having left the problem and cost of private health insurance unaddressed, people were not impressed, and
d) Since it is unpopular, the Republicans have tried to repeal it 60 times at no political consequence to them, because, as mentioned in c) it has been underwater in public opinion since Day One. Meanwhile, they have never tried to repeal single-payer Medicare because it's publicly supported and popular, and therefore there *would* be dire political consequences for that.
I'm not qualified to be a six-figure Democratic strategist, clearly. They've got it all figured out.