- Joined
- Jan 31, 2013
- Messages
- 30,807
- Reaction score
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- Georgia
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I agree that Trump and the Republicans should have left the ACA well enough alone. Done nothing until they were ready to replace it with a much greater plan as promised. If that took a year, two years, three years or maybe never, so be it. I also think the Democrats back in 2009 and 2010 should have done basically the same thing.
Something this major, time needed to be taken to get as much of it right as possible. Time needed to be taken to get most of America on board and to get some bipartisan support. Like what happened on Medicare. In the early years of JFK, it was still more Americans opposed medicare than supported. But JFK and the Democrats keep at it, trying to convince America as a whole medicare was a good thing, needed. By 1965 taking their time the Democrats had succeeded where 61% of all Americans supported it and Medicare passed with bipartisan support. Where both parties had enough in the game to ensure it worked and to strive to improve it.
That didn't happen with the ACA or Obamacare. It was solely one party, the Republicans had nothing in the game and only an average of 36% supported the ACA when it was first passed. Not 61% as in Medicare. Being against the ACA with a majority of Americans against it was a political god sent for the GOP. You know what happened in the 2010 midterms.
No one has said the ACA didn't help some people. It certainly did. The question in my book was did it help more people than it hurt. That can be very subjective as the only way I know of to finding that answer is by polling. Polling on that question ceased at the end of 2016. As for me, I had 21 years on active duty, then another 26 working for the army as a Department of the Army Civilian. Health insurance was never a problem. That's why I said you in a better position to know than I.
When most Americans are taken out of their comfort zone, disrupt their routine as the ACA did to quite a lot of Americans, they tend to get upset and angry. This is exactly what the Democrats did in 2009 and 2010. Most Americans weren't ready for it. Who knows what would have happened if the Democrats had spent a few years trying to convince people that the ACA was a good thing for them much like they did with Medicare. Medicare started out being a purely democratic initiative which gained GOP support over time. Could the same thing have happened with the ACA? I don't know. Normally I would say yes. But in today's polarized atmosphere, the outright hate between parties, perhaps not. That poisoned political polarized atmosphere along with the hate between parties is destroying this nation. More than Russia or North Korea or Iran or any outside influence could.
