If Democrats hadn't caved on PUBLIC universal insurance, would survival of MC/SS now be threatened?

[Faryn Balyncd]

Was that the turning point?

[Harmony Blue]

1. Yes

Medicare wouldn't be on the chopping block as it would have been transformed into a universal single payer. Same with Medicaid.

[sabrina 1]

2. No, and I hope they are not threatened now.

What is threatened is the 'cave' on the whole Single Payer/Po options. Now that a court has ruled the Mandate to be unconstitutional.

But when people tried to warn that this could happen, they were told to STFU. It always seemed unconstitutional to me, ever since the Republicans pushed for it and Romney got it passed in Mass.

But, the cave in to the Insurance Ind, if it was a cave, and not already agreed to before the debate even began, was a sad day for the Democratic Party.

As for MC and SS if Democrats allow those programs to be tampered with, I believe that Dem Party will never be the same again.

[Waiting For Everyman]

3. Nope and yep.

Imo, that stupid mandate had a lot to do with losing the House too. A lot of us told a lot of us that it was unconstitutional (and a dumb idea) but the know it alls know it all.

[Ozymanithrax]

4. Public, Universal insurance was never on the table...

so there was no cave.

Oh, sure, the house flirted with a public option, but the Senate could not pass it. The public option was not public universal insurance. It was intended to be a low cost policy to cover the very minimum necessities. It's purpose was to force insurance companies to lower prices, where they would offer policies did more than the bare minimum. It was a tool to spur capitalist competition in a market place that detests capitalists competition.

And it never passed.

Since universal health care was never on the table, there was never a cave.

But Medicare and SS would be under threat now, anyway, because Republicans came back in power promising to end that terrible socialist program "Obamacare" instituted by that terrible socialist party "Obamacrat" after which they would destroy SS and Medicare, two other socialist programs.

[mazzarro]

7. I disagree - it was a cave in as usual for Obama

Obama never tabled it because he was predisposed to avoid any fight with the rethugs and hence never even tried to use it as a bargain. He had already conceded the issue with the pathetic excuse that "rethugs would oppose the idea and that if he was designing healthcare from scratch, then he would given the idea a consideration". No matter how this issue is finessed Obama conceded that before the game even began.

[panzerfaust]

5. 'Twas surely Obama who caved

... as usual.

Actually, am tempted to say "as always" - for what liberal position has he not retreated from?


Next Time! SOB!!
NEXT TIME, by God, I will not Cave!!!
Next Time ...

[tritsofme]

6. Incredibly weak and faulty premise. Such a system was never proposed.

So not producing it, is not a "cave"

[slipslidingaway]

17. Everyone will have a seat at the table, all ideas are welcome ...

except the one that two-thirds of the nation said they wanted.

[Odin2005]

8. Yup. K&R

[Daninmo]

9. Our leaders caved

Remember we controlled all three branches when the present bill passed. I still remember Mrs. Pelosi saying "we have to pass this so we can find out what's in it".

[WillyT]

10. Pretty Much...

:kick: & Rec!!!

[MilesColtrane]

11. Yes.

The GOP would have seen the light, found their moral center, renounced their evil, greedy ways, and would have joined hands with the Democrats to usher in a new thousand years of social justice transforming the United States into a utopia on Earth.

[gkhouston]

12. No. They were aiming at MC/SS long before Obama was elected. n/t

[scarletwoman]

13. The biggest mistake was taking up Health Care Reform before dealing with the banks & Wall Street.

Obama took office fresh on the heels of TARP and the Bankster/Wall Street bailouts. People in this country were PISSED OFF, they knew damn well that they were being ripped off when they could see all the taxpayer money going to prop up these crooks.

We had a Democratic House, Senate, and the White House. If Obama and the Dems had taken up Wall Street and banking reforms IMMEDIATELY, the citizens of the U.S. would have cheered and applauded. All they needed to do was get out a message that "we won't let you get ripped off again."

Instead, they changed the subject as fast as they could and said, "okay now we're going to do health care." And then spent a whole fucking year digging a deeper hole and making a bigger mess, and the citizens didn't like what they were seeing and just got more pissed off.

If Obama had gone after the financial crooks, a grateful nation would have had his back for REAL health care reform, like Medicare for all. The people would have pressured their representatives to give their hero, Obama what he wanted.

And with some kind of single payer health system in place, employment would have improved, and income tax receipts would have increased and the deficit would have decreased.

And if the Dems had repealed the bush tax cuts for the wealthy when they had control of both houses of Congress, the deficit would have improved even further, and there'd be no excuse for proposing cuts to the entitlements that WE paid for.

The above is, of course, a very truncated version of an alternate reality that could have happened if Obama had been the kind of progressive leader we thought we were getting, instead of the neoliberal disaster capitalist we got.

sw

[ImOnOne]

14. confidence

I'm confident Obama is good enough at persuading the public to not touch entitlements especially when tax rates are SO low on the rich and we are in multiple wars.

[scarletwoman]

15. Well, bless your heart.

[Raine]

18. Oh yeah, I'm real confident too

:sarcasm: he's just that good. :rofl: :rofl:

[dflprincess]

19. Especially after he put them on the table n/t

[slipslidingaway]

16. Yes, once a national HC system was blocked from the discussions cuts to Medicare, Medicaid ...

were sure to follow ... unless people forgot about the boomers.

:shrug: