Obama had a super majority and could've done single payer, but he let the insurance companies write the ACA while letting Citibank choose his cabinet. Such is life when you give Democrats the power they need to make change.
They'll fight back against the power structures by ceding control to them, and taking massive bribes. Every time.
Even Bernie Sanders is a Big Pharma lackey, accepting millions.
> Obama had a super majority and could've done single payer, but he let the insurance companies write the ACA
Ah, a low-information voter, I see.
_Obama_ didn't write the ACA. It was written in Congress, and it passed only because Democrats had a once-in-a-lifetime filibuster-proof majority. Not a single Republican Senator voted for the ACA.
In particular, Joe Lieberman (Connecticut) blocked the public option. Obama tried to push for it behind the doors, but the ACA was as far as the Blue Dog Democrats were willing to be pushed.
And then, of course, Mitch McConnell happened and the Senate ground to a halt. ACA basically has not been amended since its passing.
The ACA was written by and for the benefit of insurance companies. It solidified their strangehold on the industry, and has resulted in rapidly skyrocketing prices.
Lobbyists, such as AHIP, were instrumental in structuring the law to benefit insurance companies -- including the removal of the public option.
Also, your argument was a strawman, as I never said he wrote it. If you re-read my post, you'll note I said "Obama [...] could've done single payer". As president, laws get enacted based on his signature and as the figurehead of the Democratic party he has significant leverage and sway over laws, so much so that he took credit for the ACA in its entirety. It's irrelevant whether he wrote it or not, nor did I make that argument.
Claiming that ACA is an insurance company handout because it hasn't been amended is a very interesting argument. The Democrats had a super majority. They could've done anything!
The Democrats are a party by and for lobbyist interests. Ultra rare supermajority? Time for a lobbyist handout!
> The ACA was written by and for the benefit of insurance companies. It solidified their strangehold on the industry, and has resulted in rapidly skyrocketing prices.
That's incorrect. ACA was a mostly-consensus project, and insurance companies absolutely hated the 20% profit margin limit in the ACA.
At the end of the day _someone_ has to pay for the care. It has to be either the state (like in Medicare), or private insurance companies. Both approaches can work just fine. We need more regulation of the insurance companies, and we need to decouple them from employers.
> Ultra rare supermajority? Time for a lobbyist handout!
Republicans could have stepped in and offered a public version. Just _one_ Senator would have been enough. Yet Republicans decided to stonewall the ACA completely.
There isn’t a universe where insurance companies didn’t write the ACA under Obama. The lobbied to hell Congress and Senate write the laws, Obama pushes through the best we get from them.
The ACA as a single payer totally supportive law would maybe have passed back in the early 1800s when communists headed West.
Obama did not have a supermajority. He didn’t even have 60 Democrat votes, hence having to compromise heavily on ACA, which passed in the 6 months (out of 8 years) that Obama had enough votes with a few independent Senators.
They'll fight back against the power structures by ceding control to them, and taking massive bribes. Every time.
Even Bernie Sanders is a Big Pharma lackey, accepting millions.