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Comment by Brybry | Hacker News Reader

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Combined...

The 111th Congress was the only time in the last 20 years Democrats had a filibuster-proof trifecta and that was for 72 days. [1]

That was the government that gave us the Affordable Care Act aka Obamacare.

The other Democrat trifecta was the 117th Congress[2] but if you look that's only with independents in the Senate that caucused with Democrats. Obviously also not filibuster proof.

That's the government that gave us the CHIPS act.

Think about how often parties are in power and they can't even fill appointed positions because of partisan opposition during confirmation, let alone pass legislation.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/111th_United_States_Congress

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/117th_United_States_Congress

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> That was the government that gave us the Affordable Care Act aka Obamacare.

Aka Romneycare, originally put forth by the Heritage Foundation. If that's the best Democrats can do, no wonder people aren't too optimistic about them.

If people were logical like you suggest, they wouldn't vote for an even worse situation. Yet they constantly do, so I'm sorry I cannot accept "logic" as a reason for the latest vote. People voted something, they got something, and they will get something back (where all those somethings aren't even important for elections). No, I'm not sarcastic, also not joking. Campaign and vote looked as seen from here absolutely bonkers.

It's not a good reason to vote republicans but it is a good reason to be apathetic about democrats and the political system in general.

The reason Democrats couldn't do more is because not enough people voted for them, so they can only be angry with themselves. We would have had a public option if Congress didn't have to rely on the Blue Dog democrats. IMO Democratic voters have unreasonable expectations for their politicians and Republicans basically have none. Did Trump face any consequence to failing to pass a border bill during his administration?

Obama was apathetic at best in pursuing the public option once he got elected. He made a deal with the hospital lobby early on to drop it.

https://web.archive.org/web/20211027180129/https://www.nytim...

It's not exactly secret knowledge of who would opposed a public option because their constituents fear "death panels."

The Democratic Party are the ones that passed it. The Republicans didn't, not when they held the legislature, not when they held the presidency and the legislature. Even when Romney signed it in MA (to his credit), it came from the Democratic Party held state legislature.

And its passage has helped millions, people I know personally and probably people you know personally. Maybe anyone who'd ever heard the phrase "pre-existing condition" before. It's one of the single most effective and widely beneficial government efforts in our lifetimes.

It's not that fact that Democrats did it by taking the best parts of an opposition party policy isn't impressive, it's that the unseriousness of Republicans when it comes to their own ostensible policy ideas is depressive.

The ACA is not ideal, but is the line between life and death for millions of Americans.

From Wikipedia:

The public health insurance option, also known as the public insurance option or the public option, is a proposal to create a government-run health insurance agency that would compete with other private health insurance companies within the United States. The public option is not the same as publicly funded health care, but was proposed as an alternative health insurance plan offered by the government. The public option was initially proposed for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, but was removed after the independent US senator for Connecticut Joe Lieberman threatened a filibuster.

As a result, Congress did not include the public option in the bill passed under reconciliation. The public option was later supported by Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party in the 2016 and 2020 elections and multiple other Democratic candidates, including the current President, Joe Biden.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_health_insurance_option

> filibuster-proof

Well there's your problem. The GOP knows that you need to sidestep those kind of tedious anachronisms in order to wield power effectively and get what you want. The Dems needed to learn that lesson several administrations ago.

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