Sorry, but I don't buy the "But we couldn't have gotten single-payer" defense [View all]
THEM: We couldn't get single-payer.
ME: We passed the ACA without a single GOP vote.
THEM: But red state dems would have been turned out.
ME: The red state dems were turned out anyway because the ACA still effects red states and they're still pissed. We sacrificed them and have nothing to show for it.
THEM: So we have to keep working for single-payer!
ME: How? The dems in red states were turned out. We lost the House and haven't realized enough success with the ACA to adequately guard against losing the Senate.
1. All we got for being active in 2009 and 2010 was an abomination of a law that has pissed off more people than it has helped. Has it helped people? Yes, but that doesn't nullify the fact that more people are angry than happy and in a democracy that fact is dismissed at our peril.
2. We have already lost one chamber of Congress and, denialism aside, we may well lose the other.
3. The ACA has successfully set-up a slush fund and gunpoint customer base for corporations but healthcare is not more accessible or better in quality. Do you think the corporations are going to not use their newfound money to lobby?
4. We can't campaign on improving the law because that reinforces the GOP talking point that the law is broken and they have the votes to keep it that way (see Point #2). There are NO fights in DC to improve the law, everything is a rear-guard action just to keep it alive (see Point #3).
5. The President continually suspends entire sections of the law including the individual mandate for 2 years after we just finished fighting the GOP who shutdown the government seeking to suspend the individual mandate for only 1 year. Imagine if we lose the WH in 2016 and the GOPer decides to continue THAT established practice.
6. All the while this is feeding mistrust in the government, both as a beneficent entity and competent administrator.
What did we win? We are further behind than when we started because the entire effort was half-assed corporatist kowtowing from the start.
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