Leaper
March 28, 2012, 8:00pm
1
So sez posters in another thread :
There are a ton of frightening outcomes of taking out the ACA too.
I mean, (1) it basically would eliminate the possibility that universal health care will ever come to the US (at least in the foreseeable future)… (3) In the absence of a passed HCRB and in the wake of a negative USSC outcome, Congress will not be able to address this issue again for another GENERATION or two; today’s lawmakers are far too partisan, and I guarantee you that no politician will even touch health care (even Obama if he gets a second term) for the next few decades. (4) Perhaps most importantly, invalidating the ACA will put this country in a situation where essentially the ONLY solution to our HC crisis will be for us to adopt a single-payer system because the private alternative would’ve been deemed unconstitutional. The problem with that last scenario, though, is that there is no movement on the single-payer front, and Congress members today are much too terrified to embrace such an idea anyway; in the meantime, the problem would only get worse, and I highly doubt that they would coalesce around that solution to begin with.
If it goes down, no Congress will ever take it up again. It will become the third rail of politics. Obama spent all of his first term political capital on this and his second term will not be with a Congress nearly as inclined to lift a finger. Democrats saw that it cost them the Speakership in 2010, they are not going to let this issue burn them again. Republicans will not do a thing about health care, mostly because they honestly don’t give two shits about it.
So what do you think? What outcomes (since there’s more than one possible one, depending on the combination of findings) will have what impact? What will happen to health care in the U.S. in the future as a result of this whole imbroglio?