Flashback: Obama says Sanders' supporters helped undermine Obamacare

[wyldwolf]

Obama has been spending part of his last two weeks in office urging supporters to speak out against plans by Republicans - who will soon control both the White House and Congress - to dismantle the 2010 Affordable Care Act.

At a town hall event with Vox Media, Obama acknowledged the politics have been stacked against his reforms, mainly blaming Republicans who he said refused to help make legislative fixes to Obamacare, which provides subsidies for private insurance to lower-income Americans who do not have healthcare plans at work.

But Obama also said Liberals like former Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders had contributed to the program’s unpopularity.

During Sanders’ campaign for the presidential nomination, he proposed replacing Obamacare with a government-run single-payer health insurance system.

“In the ‘dissatisfied’ column are a whole bunch of Bernie Sanders supporters who wanted a single-payer plan,” Obama said in the interview.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-obamacare-idUSKBN14Q2E5?fbclid=IwAR1NaH7WQ8e33I5k7vc-6WsGmu7yzJZvn_7zJdhZejUxf4W_T03jRzn6imw

[dalton99a]

1. The perfect is the enemy of the good

Gotta kill the good in order to achieve purity

[bigbrother05]

3. Better often loses to consensus

Public option was cut in hopes of getting moderate Republicans (looking at you Susan Collins) to vote for the package. Not a single GOPer voted for it, so we missed a chance to strengthen the whole package.

[betsuni]

12. No it wasn't.

Al Franken: "Still, the math was the math, and it forced us to make some tough compromises. A handful of moderate-to-conservative Democrats were opposed to the public option, which would have increased competition in the insurance market. Gone."

[thesquanderer]

5. But Sanders will still take good over perfect. He voted FOR the ACA. (n/t)

[KPN]

2. The ACA was always underwater in public polling.

Why? Because Rs were against “Obamacare” and progressive Democrats were concerned from the get go that it didn’t go far enough by not even considering single payer.

Sanders did not create or cause the unpopularity of the ACA. He acknowledged. This was shooting the messenger.

[George II]

4. Sanders was criticizing the ACA while the debate was going on prior to being passed.

[bahrbearian]

6. Flashback Obama Promises the Public Option.

https://thinkprogress.org/flashback-obama-repeatedly-touted-public-option-before-refusing-to-push-for-it-in-the-final-hours-380cbf31b6e0/

— In the 2008 Obama-Biden health care plan on the campaign’s website, candidate Obama promised that “any American will have the opportunity to enroll in [a] new public plan.” [2008]

— During a speech at the American Medical Association, President Obama told thousands of doctors that one of the plans included in the new health insurance exchanges “needs to be a public option that will give people a broader range of choices and inject competition into the health care market.” [6/15/09]


— While speaking to the nation during his weekly address, the President said that “any plan” he signs “must include…a public option.” [7

[uponit7771]

7. And the uninformed think it was Obama that sank that part of the ACA ...

... the uninformed.

[bahrbearian]

8. maybe you could inform me about the Grand Bargain.

[uponit7771]

9. what does that have to do with ACA? Grand Bargain was Obama admit attempt at making Tea Party reps

... look like a-holes that wouldn't deal with him no matter what, they succeeded.

[betsuni]

11. ACA with public option passed in the House, was taken out because couldn't get enough

votes in the Senate. There were sixty votes in the Senate, giving every one of those Senators a veto, for only four months and ten days.

Al Franken: "Still, the math was the math, and it forced us to make some tough compromises. A handful of moderate-to-conservative Democrats were opposed to the public option, which would have increased completion in the insurance market. Gone."

[redqueen]

14. "A handful of moderate-to-conservative Democrats opposed to the public option"

That's who I blame.

[Blue_Tires]

10. Naturally...

There's a reason why St. Bern was on the sidelines when Obama could have used his support back in 2010, and when he ran in 2016 all his people tried to pretend he was the first candidate to ever talk healthcare reform.

[Autumn]

13. Obamacare was on life support before Bernie ran and before Bernie supporters were a thing.

the blame for that can be put on the GOP. The GOP began the dismantling and undermining of it the day after it was passed.

3 year old article.

“In the ‘dissatisfied’ column are a whole bunch of Bernie Sanders supporters who wanted a single-payer plan,” Obama said in the interview.
“The problem is not that they think Obamacare is a failure. The problem is that they don’t think it went far enough and that it left too many people still uncovered,” Obama said.

It's true. It didn't go far enough.