Barack Obama celebrates 15 year anniversary of ACA by joining BlueSky

Thanks for dropping the “public option” after going into closed door negotiations with the insurance companies for three weeks and coming out with a mandate handing them millions of new captive market participants and putting few, very sacred few limitations or regulatory requirements for how to run their industry. Thanks for dismantling your campaign infrastructure when the GOP started playing “the heel”.

This is the reason why he stopped Bernie. He (and many others in the Democratic Party leadership) knew that only a huge populist movement like Bernie’s could tear power out of the hands of financial/industrial Oligarchs. He’s terrified that if we get some variation of universal healthcare in his lifetime, EEEEEEEVERYONE is going to go back through all that bullshit they said, all the excuses they made, and rub their faces in it. Not only that but also most of these crooked politicians are heeeeaaavily invested in the various private healthcare companies.

I am not a particularly religious person, but I know this to be true: You can’t serve two masters.

I recall they had to drop the public option after Ted Kennedy died and they no longer had a supermajority in the Senate. To get around a Republican filibuster, they had to rely on a less than ideal version of the bill through the reconciliation process
I don't think it's a pride thing as much as it is a money thing.

The ACA is the best he could do. It’s not like a US President can just go around like a wrecking ball ignoring all established law and checks and balances.

The Democrats briefly had a super majority in Obama's first 2 years, and could have passed universal healthcare, not this limp dick ACA stuff, but yet here we are. Stuck with a patchwork of terrible private insurance where your policy has lifetime maximums, and the shareholders can sentence you to death so that line goes up.
- You can thank Schumer for that as well.
- Ultimately, even Democratic politicians are beholden to wealthy donors, including those associated with the health insurance industry.
  In this post-Citizens-United world, the only way to make real change is to have a bunch of people willing to not hold onto power to do the right thing simultaneously. Sadly, the likelihood of that happening is vanishingly small.
- Who would support a citizen cooperative that offers a good private insurance? Under the given circumstances that could be the easiest way to get universal healthcare.
It’s not like a US President can just go around like a wrecking ball ignoring all established law and checks and balances.
Ha... If this was sarcasm, it's been underappreciated.

change happens in many small steps
- This sold under the same banner as "any lasting change is non-violent."
  incrementalism is just another way to argue for mass passivity.
  That's how we've gotten here.
  The ACA further enshrined the core rot of our healthcare system into it, FOR PROFIT health insurers.
- If you wait for the perfect solution, you likely will never get it. Similar to pedestrian friendly infrastructure and people’s expectations on day 1.
- Have you been in a coma for the past couple months?

"It's easy to thik that regular folks can't make a difference... but look at Luigi!"

ACA was a great idea that they purposefully let the Republicans destroy. Democrats don't want progress, they just want the status quo and to be able to shrug and say, "We tried."

Cowards.

I think its fairer to say about 25% of Democratic politicians are garbage (vs 100% of republicans) but it effectively means they will never pass any kind of uncorrupted reform unless they are absolutely terrified.

Bro literally had the votes for single payer and didn't take it.

There were a LOT of shitty liberal status-quo standards that Obama stamped down, solidified and made mandate for 8 years while paving the way for conservatism to run amuck across the country by not using his unprecedented power to actually implement and federally protect progressive politics and install judges. ACA was so watered-down from the public option we all wanted, that it was literally a plan invented by Republicans, Mitt Romney specifically.
I thought Obama was a great person, he was a great leader, he was inspiring and helped create prosperity and peace for many years. But I'm not a personality cultist, I have some serious criticisms of his presidency and how he managed the Democratic party (or failed to).
He had every opportunity to push America into a new era of social policies and protections for all people, and what actually happened is a lot of banks made a lot of money.
- He thought he could compromise Republicans into behaving, he didn't realize until it was too late that they'd never support a black man. And since the GOP knows that a black president is a possibility, they'll never allow a Democrat to bring their voice above a whisper again
I'm not from the us, what does it mean?
- “Single payer” refers to the government being the one paying for healthcare and prescriptions, and thus having tons of leverage to negotiate lower costs while also providing healthcare to everybody.
  Basically, it was one possible method to bring healthcare in the US up to the level of the rest of the developed world.
- Single Payer is basically the system most countries have where healthcare is not a luxury good, but a human right.

Trump..... A couple of days ago I ended the federal education department. I thought I might wanna check out what the little people are thinking.

Legitimate question: if there is a change to the term limits on the office of POTUS, passed by GOP to enable another Trump run, wouldn't that also allow Obama to run again? If yes, what are the pros and cons of this? Just trying to game this out.

One congressman (who is also under an FBI investigation) proposed an amendment that would allow presidents who have not served two consecutive terms to run for a third; which takes care of the pesky Obama problem.
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-third-term-proposal-has-clause-stop-barack-obama-running-2020334
- This seems like theater, though not without potential harm. An amendment tailored made to exempt only Trump from the 22nd amendment would be an odd one to see ratified by 75% of the states.
- Wouldn't that need another change in 4 years time, if Trump manages to get two consecutive terms himself? (For argument sake, regardless of his age).
He was milquetoast compared to actual progressive politicians. He folded like all paid opposition party Democrats when it came to the public option.
He put his finger on the scale to get others to drop out all on the same day so Bernie wouldn't win the nomination and you got Biden instead.
They would likely do away with term limits for Republicans only since they can make their own rules and even if they didn't Obama wouldn't run for another term because he would say it isn't the way the founding fathers wanted and the all important parliamentarian said no.
- I agree with most of this. I would rather have seen Bernie in 2016, but timeline jokes aside, we got what we got. I am not trying to ignore the past so much as look to the future.
- Even some of the most established dictatorship and oligarchy governments in the world still have elections, though they are probably not free or fair in all cases. So, yes, I think there will be an election of some sort in 2028, if only to assuage the international community. I admit that I could be wrong, and that the possibility is very scary.
Cons: immediate civil war, making the last one look like a tea party. Pros:
- To clarify, you think Obama being on the ballot would be the last straw before violent uprising against or violent repression by the existing administration? Or the removal of term limits?

Still a capitalist shill, eh?

I'd rather take this capitalist shill than the fascist shill. When Obama is right of the Overton Window middle I'd consider that a success.

While it was a good idea, putting the IRS in charge of it was the stupidest thing ever. If you're not covered all 12 months you get a big fine. Last year I had issues with the website that was probably coded by some kid whose dad said he was "good with computers" and wasn't able to get coverage for 4 months. It fucked me over. Fuck the IRS.

The individual mandate penalty went away in 2019
- Well, I still owed about a thousand when I'd normally get a refund. I should really brush up on current tax laws.

Sorry, here ya go. Is that cropped enough?

The ACA blows. Here are my issues with it:

doesn't go far enough - I would've been better off w/ ACA if my employer didn't offer coverage (small company of <50 people), but switching would've eliminated my employer contribution and the credit
goes too far - too opinionated about what care counts

The proper solution IMO would've been to:

separate health insurance from employment - employers can offer cash incentives, but you should be able to choose if you want their group coverage or to apply the cash to your own plan
simplify healthcare coverage terms - most people don't understand their health coverage, though ACA plans are a bit easier to understand; they should have required all health insurance plans to simplify their coverage
expand Medicare/Medicaid instead of creating a new healthcare marketplace

But no, they didn't do any of that. Screw everyone involved. Republicans for neutering the bill, and Democrats for only fighting for the stuff that doesn't matter as much.

He's still got my vote

No archived link. I was on vacation, so I couldn't do it at the time. I'm just going to lock it since it seems to have gone off already.

Sidenote: Are there any clients that make it easy to mod on mobile?