If democrats could have truly passed any version of the bill they desired, it would likely be a single-payer system or at bare minimum include the public option. Why didn't either of those come to be?
Also, when a party is actively lying, and has convinced almost 50% of their dimwitted backers that a new law is going to actively kill senior citizens, it's safe to lay some of the blame for the exclusion of that provision at the feet of that political party.
In the end, thought, your parent post is correct. They got 0 republican votes on it, so they could've made it anything they wanted that they all agreed on and wouldn't be ruled unconstitutional.
In the end, thought, your parent post is correct.
The PPACA passed the senate before Ted Kennedy died. When it became clear that the republicans wouldn't vote for any provision, the democrats had two options.
1. Start over with a new, more aggressive bill
2. Pass the senate bill in the house
Since Scott Brown took away the 60-seat supermajority in the senate, the republicans could have completely scuttled any bill at all in the senate, preventing even modest changes to health care.
The D's had no option but to pass the PPACA.
* * * Late Edit since people take exception to my last line above:* * *
The D's technically did have a choice to not pass the PPACA. However, since 0 republicans would vote for any health care reform, their two options were either pass PPACA in the house, or not pass any health care reform. If they had neglected to pass any health care bills, all of their political capital would have been wasted along with several years of debate in congress. It was clear at the time that the 2010 census would provide numerous gerrymandering opportunities to the Rs (who had state-level majorities in many states), which would lead to unavoidable democratic losses in the next election. Add to those losses the impact of a non-presidential election cycle, and the wasted political capital and lack of progress on health care reform, and it was clear that for health care reform to pass in the decade, it would have to be the PPACA.
Clearly they had every option. Including, doing something different. These are senators, not 5 year old children.
The behavior of Ted Cruz, et al successfully shutting down the government for a few weeks over something party leadership told them wasn't winnable would seem to indicate that there's really not that much difference between the two.
Yes, it's worse now, but it was already headed there when the ACA was passed.
I would not deny that the Honorable Junior Senator from Texas does comport himself like a five year old.
The point still stands, however, that the party leadership did not want that fight and knew that they were unlikely to get any real concessions. Boehner, for all his flaws, got pushed into it by the even more unreasonable element of the GOP.
Yes, they did. They could have not passed it.
It's an option that is likely to look increasingly attractive in hindsight over the next year or two.
I do not.
"Something" is not always better than "nothing". There are "somethings" worse than "nothing". You may find that you turn out to be in full support of a "something" worse than "nothing".
Oh, and I do have suggestions about what should have replaced it, but since you'll just then accuse those suggestions of killing millions of poor innocent babies and kittens, why bother sharing them? You're arguing with emotion, not fact.
Unfortunately, ACA has left the realm of emotion and entered the realm of fact... and it is faring poorly. I do not relish this, believe it or not, but the longer it takes for people to realize the size of the gulf between fact and promise, the more damage it's going to do to people. And that is where we are right now with the ACA... damage containment mode. Not "celebrate the end of health care woes in the US!" mode.
And just because a website rollout didn't go as planned does not mean that the program is fairing poorly. There have already been a number of key changes that have had a positive impact (a ton of my friends were able to maintain health coverage throughout the recession thanks to the age limit increase (26) for dependents). It's not perfect, but doing nothing was not an option simply because it would be a least a decade or more before the issue could have been addressed again.
If it's really true that Republican backers are dimwitted, what's anyone supposed to do about that? Why can't the Democrats win them over with better messaging? Shouldn't be too hard. They're dimwits, after all.
Why can't the Democrats win them over with better messaging?
[1] - http://washingtonexaminer.com/howard-deans-scream-tv-screwed... [2] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kerry_military_service_con... [3] - http://www.marketplace.org/topics/elections/campaign-trail/n... [4a] - http://research.stlouisfed.org/fredgraph.png?g=nQE [4b] - http://research.stlouisfed.org/fredgraph.png?g=nQF