I appreciate the nuance of your argument. It's a good point in general, and I personally don't fit cleanly into any existing party.
That said, I think we can reasonably propose that most of the sound and fury over the ACA was political theater. Mitt Romney wasn't decried when he passed a nearly identical law in Massachussetts. In fact, the RNC chose Romney to run against Obama in 2012, so it clearly didn't hurt him much.
Ask yourself this: if John McCain had beaten Obama in 2008, and he proposed taking RomneyCare to the national level, do you think he would have drawn the same kind of criticism from republicans as Obama did?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying this is a republican problem. Democrats probably would have been furious with McCain if that had happened. They likely would have decried the lack of public option, and they would have called it a massive hand-out to private insurers. Democrats are not any better. They only supported the ACA because it was backed by their guy.
Obviously I'm speaking in blanket statements, and there will be individuals that this doesn't apply to. However, I'm pretty confident that these statements are true in the average case.