I think you are wrong about that. Remember the shit that the “gang of 8” got? As far as controversial topics to push, health care is indisputably a more important issue to Americans than immigration. And " pre-existing conditions" undoubtedly more meaningful to the population at large than DREAMER status. People can get more worked about immigration but health care is by far a more day to day concern compared to immigrants are taking our jobs type stuff.
Oh, I agree that healthcare reform was and is VERY important. I don’t think the ACA got us the level of reform that it cost, in a cost to benefits kind of way. Immigration reform is one of my own things I’d like to see happen, so that’s why I brought it up, but an alternative to the ACA might have been that the Dems pushed whole hog for a single payer system instead of the compromise system, even if they didn’t get it in the end, as that alone might have made a difference in subsequent elections. Consider…how would Dem voters have felt if they saw the Dems pushing for EXACTLY what they were asking for and wanting and the Republicans getting in the way? Might that have made a difference at the mid-term? In the subsequent Trump verse Clinton election?
Maybe I’m wrong, and this was all destined to happen. If so then those saying the ACA was worth it are right…better the little bit than nothing.
The Dems failed, for sure, on what they brought about. It failed in their own caucus though so it’s hard for me to say they failed when some of their members wanted them to fail.
While I understand that immigration reform is important, it’s a fact that healthcare accessibility is important to all people living in the states and is thus logically more important to more people. To this non-American, bringing healthcare to the same level in American thought as fire and police coverage is just such a fundamental thing.
I think people are responding to the question weirdly because it seems obvious. Perfect fulfillment in any other area would be worth giving up imperfect fulfillment in this area. The ACA is entirely a compromise bill that doesn’t really satisfy anyone, but it better than before.
Actual immigration reform would be worth it. At the time, even one seat on the Supreme Court, if it replaced a conservative, would have been worth it. Proper gun control with licensing that doesn’t take away anyone’s guns would have been amazing. In hindsight, I’d throw in electoral college reform, legalize the merely traditional barriers on the Presidency (especially not being able to shut down an investigation), making it clear that you can be prosecuted for crimes before you enter office, actual rules that start impeachment even if Republicans don’t want it, etc. Basically, anything to save us from Trump and anyone like him in the future. Oh, and an actual national law allowing abortion, to make sure that it would take a supermajority to remove it. At the time, I probably would have been okay with trading it for gay marriage, but now I’d require gay marriage plus trans rights, and again made completely legal.
I just don’t think it could have actually happened, and we should always take what we can get.
No, because the problem is still there, and would come up again later. Trump is a symptom. We need things that would make it difficult for people like Trump to take office, and then basically force them to work for the people if they do.
John Mace, I should introduce you to my sister…like you, self employed and not eligible for subsidies, and paying a lot less (for a lot better coverage) under the ACA than she was able to previously. No, I have no idea why your experience has been so different from hers, but there’s no question that this law has made an enormous difference in her life, as it did in my daughter’s. —Just looking through this thread, I see three or four people who seem like they’re in the same boat. I haven’t seen stats on it, but my impression is that tons of people have benefitted from the ACA—to say nothing of its role in changing the debate over preexisting conditions and the like. It’s been a hell of a lot more valuable TO SOCIETY than a “stick of gum.”