Well, now we’ve got the midterms coming up. Have the Pubs learned any lessons they might apply this year?
Some of them have. But the real question is, will they apply those lessons. Or rather, will they be able to.
You mean whether they will be ALLOWED to.
Allowed by whom? Party leaders, or Tea Party challengers?
Yes.
By the base, which in GOP primaries has shown itself to believe that any electoral failure was due to not being batshit enough.
Well, the first lesson learned has been, don’t get in the way when Democrats are destroying themselves. The focus for the next 11 months should be on Obamacare. And Democrats should want it that way too.
You’ll never live to see it repealed, you know.
I have to disagree with you, 'luc. Party leaders are generally wishing that the Tea Party would fall into a nice, deep hole soonest. Even the grifterati that make up the Tea Party leadership are beginning to notice that doubling down on the cray-cray has diminishing returns. It’s the wingnut base that’s playing the role of the proverbial tiger, and the leadership of both factions that are trying to figure out a way to stick the dismount without getting eaten.
Probably not the whole bill anymore, but Republicans can still remake it in their image. If Democrats want to call that “Obamacare”, and call it a win, they can if they want to.
On the flip side, you’ll never see single payer in your lifetime. In fact, I bet that if ACA survives, it will be extended to the whole nation and we’ll get rid of Medicare.
Although, if the bill polls poorly in 2016 and the GOP has the White House and both chambers of Congress, they might just repeal it to send a message. It’s not like the Democrats will see 60 Senate seats for a long time, nor will they reacquire the balls to try the same thing again. The price of repeal is just an election or two, but the setback to further social engineering will last a very long time. Democrats NEED ACA to be as invincible as SS and Medicare. Once they see that their entitlements can indeed by repealed, it will be a long time before they are willing to make short term political sacrifices to get more entitlements passed.
It was made in their image in the first place, remember?
The fact that Vermont is doing single payer even with an ACA framework shows that you are wrong once again.
And as I posted before, yet another item that shows that Media Matters was more on the money when they reported that the ACA allowed for states to plug in things like a public option and single payer to the ACA.
Still waiting for the “replace” part. Time’s running out for it, though.
The *Republicans *want to call it that, thinking it hangs something around the Dummycraps’ necks. Remember Romney trying that in the debates? How’d that work out for him?
WTF do you think Medicare is, but “socialized medicine” that constitutes a single-payer public option for those over 65 and the younger disabled? Have you thought about this at all? We’ve *already *got the system in place - the only thing left to do is phase in expanded eligibility for it, as the ACA bill would have done without the filibuster.
It isn’t a bill anymore. :rolleyes:
And we’re the ones imagining things? 
You might have forgotten that we already had that election, that Obamacare was the primary issue, and, if not for gerrymandering, the Dems would have a clean sweep.
But the Republicans will, huh?
Go ahead and tell us how well your party’s efforts to restrict SS eligibility and voucherize Medicare have been received, please.
Not to mention privatizing Social Security, back when the Last Republican President Who Shall Not Be Named tried it.
That was a nice talking point, but not really true. The Republican version did have exchanges and a mandate, but it did not have all those insurance mandates which push the price up, nor did it make the young subsidize the old.
And my comparison to SS and Medicare was to point out that ACA is NOT those programs and as of this moment, is eminently repealable. If it’s still underwater in the polls in 2017, it will be repealed.
So says the one that said that single payer would not be seen in our lifetimes if ACA survives. States already have the option to go that way under the ACA and we are seeing it in Vermont, I will not be surprised to see more go that way in the near future.
It “might”, and it’s a short list. Republicans would never impose mandates that would increase the cost of insurance significantly. Republicans were campaigning against unreasonable insurance mandates in the states for many years before ACA was even being debated.
States are free to do whatever they want. I’m interested in seeing how the unions and the elderly react to being put in the same system as everyone else.
Oh wait, they’ll be exempt, won’t they?