The cost was wildly underestimated. It’s a lot easier to sell something to the public when they think it won’t cost them much. That’s why we have the CBO now. The CBO isn’t authoritative because they are accurate, they are authoritative because they are impartial. Prior to that, politicians would just throw out figures that served their agenda, like Medicare only costing $9 billion by the 1980s, or the SS tax only being 1%. Who wouldn’t take retirement security for 1% of their income? 7.5%, that might have given workers pause.
Of course, by the time the bill actually came due, the programs were untouchable. I think Democrats counted on that happening this time. Just lie and lie until you have a dedicated corps of beneficiaries, by which point it doesn’t matter anymore.
Be happy. YOu got away with the first two. This one, you got busted. Hopefully your side will pay the price like adults and we can have a minimum of whining over the next few years of GOP dominance.
And the best part is, if the Democrats ever try to pass a major piece of legislation like this again, we can highlight how much they lied about this one and people will actually remember.
We can only hope they don’t remember Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, worker’s compensation, child labor laws…Don’t worry, people, Big Business will take care of you. We don’t need no stinkin’ laws…
Ah yes, because there are examples of programs that people like, therefore people should just trust Democrats and like everything they suggest.
Trust is a two way street though. Democrats shouldn’t have demonstrated mistrust of the public by lying to them, telling them that the program would benefit everyone when in reality it’s a welfare program.
The CBO has a tendency to be the most correct as any and they set the baselines for scoring all budgetary legislation out of Congress.
Add to that the ‘real’ data that health care costs have been going down for several years and there is little reason to believe that the CBO would be way off.
Their projections surely will not go up based upon actual costs going down.
In the long run the ACA will benefit everyone including those 1.5 million who will pay a percentage more for insurance next year. The main reason being that the inflationary rate of increase for health care in the US is finally slowing down .
IN the meantime I wonder if sites like Politico will make a big deal out of this big lie by a high ranking Republican Leader:
Obama has already dealt with those in the private markets that will pay more. The insurers cannot blame the increase in their renewed policies on the ACA. That affects about two million Americans. Many of those will continue to gripe no matter what because of political orientation .
But those relatively few in number will not have a long run major negative impact on the overall public’s acceptance as the ACA as a good program for all.
The heyday for political opposition attack on the ACA is now and will begin to subside as soon as the website gets up and rolling and people realize what they are getting.
Another thing critics of the ACA are forgetting right now is that all Americans were being ‘taxed’ in the status quo health care delivery system when the costs for treating the uninsured were buried into what a hospital charges patients for an aspirin and a box of Kleenex.
Back then the ‘tax’ was imposed more at the whim of the Medical industry than by the government. Now we the people have some say in how that ‘tax’ is imposed.
Totally. The GOP has made massive strides in the Latino vote, especially with replacing the Dream Act with the Don’t Even Think About it! Act. And, of course, the urban poor is totally psyched about the cut in food stamp benefits, But hey! Free drug testing! Are you on drugs? Better find out, maybe you are, maybe you aren’t.
As referenced above, Rush Limbaugh is taking on the task as spokescreep for the GOP in their outreach to women. And Moms with children covered under their insurance will sleep better knowing that the Republicans are eager to yank that out from under them. And that’s not even to mention women troubled over decisions about when and whether or not to have children in the first place. Don’t worry your pretty, albeit empty, little head about it! Old white men will decide that!
Leaving the white vcte. Divided between the Damn Right I’m White vote and the White? Yeah, Sure, I Guess vote. Except for those white people who are either poor, young, female, or educated. Leaving the Koch Brothers and the Waltons. Not the Waltons on TV, who lived on Walton’s Mountain. The ones who own Walton’s Mountain.
Well, see, that’s the difference between us. I think welfare programs do benefit everyone. Poor people dying in the streets is such an *unpleasant *sight…
That’s up to the public to decide, and so far the reaction to welfare programs ranges from mixed to hostile.
As for single-payer, Glutton, good luck with that. I’m sure if ACA fails, Americans will be rushing to the Democrats to take away the health insurance of all those who didn’t lose it to ACA. The unions especially will adore being dumped into Medicaid.
Then why do we still have them, after plenty of election cycles to rethink the whole thing? Hint: Not because people on welfare vote. (Actually, they rarely do.)
“Take away”? The nearest example of a single-payer country is Canada, and while there might be some criticisms to be made of their health-care system, nobody there lacks basic coverage. So “take away” is apparently your personal idiosyncratic euphemism for “give.”
Well, welfare was reformed in 1996, after a Democrat captured the White House for the first time by promising to “end welfare as we know it”. That took welfare from a top 10 issue to a low priority issue, since it cut the welfare rolls by two thirds.
There hasn’t been a big new welfare program since LBJ. Everything since then has been small bore, since Americans do support programs that are cheap(and small programs seem to work better than big programs), or in the case of ACA, couched as something closer to SS and Medicare than the welfare program that it is.
So you’re single payer system would work by allowing people to have BASIC coverage that they purchase which gives them better access than the single payer system?
That’s what we have now. People can have private insurance, or if they are poor enough, they can have Medicaid. So sure, extend Medicaid to anyone without insurance, we can do that.
“Take away”? The nearest example of a single-payer country is Canada, and while there might be some criticisms to be made of their health-care system, nobody there lacks basic coverage. So “take away” is apparently your personal idiosyncratic euphemism for “give.”