Then your answer should have been Yes.
No, my answer(s) should have been exactly what I said they were.
Reform, yes. Obamacare, No.
That's certainly your opinion and you are certainly welcome to it. There are many people who agree. There are also people who think we should have gone all the way with a single payer system.
Personally, I think once all the political rhetoric falls to the wayside, people will realize, much like any legislation, there are good parts of Obamacare and bad parts. Somewhere down the line, "reform" will be proposed and maybe passed, but a reform which keeps many elements of Obamacare.
It has not proven to be a success so far.
It hasn't even gone into effect. The enrollment only just started (with terrible implementation, but that's besides the point right now), the corporate piece was delayed...how exactly can legislation be a success before it's even fully implemented?
If, after three years and almost a billion dollars, they cant even set up a web site, how do you think the rest of it will go?
A) The quality of the website has nothing to do with the quality of the legislation. B) There are many factors which have gone into why the website rollout has gone badly. You'll notice those states who set up their own exchanges have had a relatively smooth time of it. If you remember, the law was developed with the idea all states would set up their own online exchanges with the federal website simply being a portal to those state exchanges. The deadline for states to declare if they were creating their own exchange was (I believe) in February of this year, leaving very little time to adjust and change direction. With roughly half the states opting not to build their own exchange website (usually for political reasons), this dramatically altered the direction the federal website was forced to take.
The website is obviously a wreck. It's unacceptable a major rollout of a major piece of major legislation should go this badly. But it's also understandable for why it has gone the way it has.
Only one side voted for it, and against public concerns. That would be the Democrats.
You're changing what we were talking about. I said both sides have spread mistruths about this legislation, and pointed out where Republicans have done so.
Your comment here really has no relevance to the topic of this particular tract of our discussion.
He did call for bipartisan support but it was never there. And there is a difference between what can be done and what should be done. The American people should always come first.
And the American people know what we had before was terrible.
It certainly has become nonsense but that was seldom the case in previous administrations. Other presidents have learned how to work within the provisions laid down according to the Constitution. This President has been an obvious failure in that area.
....are you saying it is the President's fault the Republicans have made the political choice to oppose everything he wants to do?
Ignoring for a moment the broken politics we've had with previous Presidents, I simply do not see how you can put the responsibility of the Republican Party's actions on anyone but the Republican Party.
They wanted free stuff, like their Obamaphones and food stamps.
Both of which were created before Obama and expanded under Republican presidents. If they wanted those things, they should have voted for a Republican. After all, it was Reagan who provided the free phones and Bush who provided the free cell phones.
Those Democrats who voted for Obamacare had no idea what was in it
That's just false. They may not have read the entire thing and they may not understood all the minute details, but to say they had no idea what was in it is simply false. Everyone knew the major parts of what was in it.
Does it need to be pointed out that, so far, t has been a divisive and expensive boondoggle?
Does it need to be pointed out the quality of implementation has nothing to do with the quality of the regulations?
Now I could also get into the more partisan points of how Republicans have done everything they could to ensure it has been divisive and expensive, but it's not really relevant to the more important point of the difference between rollout and effectiveness.
And you feel that Obamacare will turn that around?
I feel we had an absolutely wretched system and Obamacare will improve on many aspects of what made it so terrible.
The fact remains that wealthy Canadians, Europeans, etc, went to the US for their health care problems
Yes, the WEALTHY. I do not dispute in the least the US health care system was great for the WEALTHY.
and the poor were always looked after.
No they weren't. That's utterly false and I could direct you to many people with real life stories to prove it.
You're probably not all that familiar with other health care systems
I'm quite familiar that many of the effective ones resemble Obamacare far more than what we previously had.
More free enterprise in the health care system and tort reform would have helped the previous system
Because it's helped so much in the telecommunications industry, where each year AT&T and Verizon find new ways to screw over existing users by finding new ways to limit their usage while charging them more and higher fees?
Could there have been reforms in the previous system which could have helped? I have no doubt. But we needed something which provided everyone with the opportunity to receive quality healthcare, not simply the ones wealthy enough to afford it.
That's certainly true about the President.
It's true of far too many of them.
Washington's open secret: Profitable PACs - 60 Minutes - CBS News
That's just an example.
Yes, we'll see. But I'd say its off to a very rocky and expensive start, few know where the truth lies and few know what the consequences might be.
It most certainly is off to a very rocky start. But while a more smooth rollout would have been great, it's not surprising to see a reform of this magnitude to encounter major bumps.
It truly is a leap of faith, which doesn't seem a very responsible thing to me.
It's not a leap of faith. A leap of faith is blindly throwing things out and simply hoping for the best. The concepts behind Obamacare are quite solid. It will just remain to be seen if it works the way it's expected to.
Grow up, kid, one of these days it is going to happen. You don't understand freedom at all. How can a group of people support a woman's right to choose, a person's right to marry whoever they want, and not support a person's right not to have health insurance?
I'm quite grown, as evidenced by the fact I have no problem addressing what you say. You, however, have decided to once more avoid what I said and instead resort to empty Republican rhetoric. How's that costume fitting?
Oh, and there's nothing forcing you to have health insurance. You are more than welcome to not purchase health insurance.
You don't seem to understand personal responsibility at all for if you did you would understand that personal choice is part of that personal responsibility.
Says the person who thinks I should pay for other people's free health insurance. :roll: