This is how this conversation started. I think I've provided a pretty good summary (#2456).
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There was over a year of committee negotiations with Republicans and countless amendments to the bill. All those things you claim to want were stripped out in the process. Max Baucus actually spent 8 months trying to work on just one amendment. And you, in the process of advocating for a party who did all this, want to claim it didn't happen. It's a lie more than adequately revealed by hard evidence.
That's interesting. I was living without electricity during this time and didn't know some of these things were going on. I have always wondered why the ACA battle wasn't about single payer vs. private plans.
Quote:
Opposition to single payer health care[edit]
Advocate groups attended a Senate Finance Committee meeting in May 2009 to protest their exclusion as well as statements by Baucus that "single payer was not an option on the table." Baucus later had eight protesters removed by police who arrested them for disrupting the hearing. Many of the single-payer advocates claimed it was a "pay to play" event.[41][42][43] A representative of the Business Roundtable, which includes 35 memberships of health maintenance organizations, health insurance and pharmaceutical companies, admitted that other countries, with lower health costs, and higher quality of care, such as those with single-payer systems, have a competitive advantage over the United States with its private system.[44]
At the next meeting on health care reform of the Senate Finance Committee, Baucus had five more doctors and nurses removed and arrested.[45][46][47] Baucus admitted a few weeks later in June 2009 that it was a mistake to rule out a single payer plan[48] because doing so alienated a large, vocal constituency and left President Barack Obama’s proposal of a public health plan to compete with private insurers as the most liberal position.[48]
Begin negotiating? The Democrats had the WH, the Senate and the House. They knew this and didn't bother doing actual negotiating.
Problem is, they knew this was a gigantic sack of shit and they wanted Republicans on board when they opened the sack on the American people.
The ACA is owned solely by the Democrats. This needs to be repeated until election day and every day until November 2016.
First, I always find it funny when Dems ay they want single payer, then say they want Medicare for all. Considering with Medicare you pretty much HAVE to have a supplemental plan. So yeah.. Medicare for all.. raise your taxes, AND you have to buy insurance anyway. Great plan.
Second.. Dems had 60 votes in the Senate, more then enough in the House, and the Presidency. They didn't even TRY to pass single payer because THEIR people wouldn't have voted for it. Single payer is something the extreme left wants, not moderate Dems. Single payer is one of those things that if you ask Americans one way, they say yes, ask another, they say no. "Would you like free heathcare" - Sure. "Would you like to pay 10% more in taxes and get a medicare like plan?" - No. A dem in a rep state or district isn't going to vote for something that will get him tossed out. Just like a Repub in a blue state/district. That's one reason why the house almost always needs a few people from the other side to cross, so that way some of their people can vote no for political purposes.
Third... The Dem leaders said when ACA was passed that it would "lead to a single payer system". I think THEY expected it to fail on it's own. They want single payer, and if ACA works, there would be no reason to go to single payer.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapoth...-payer-system/
Quote:
"Reid said he thinks the country has to “work our way past” insurance-based health care during a Friday night appearance on Vegas PBS’ program “Nevada Week in Review.”
“What we’ve done with Obamacare is have a step in the right direction, but we’re far from having something that’s going to work forever,” Reid said.
When then asked by panelist Steve Sebelius whether he meant ultimately the country would have to have a health care system that abandoned insurance as the means of accessing it, Reid said: “Yes, yes. Absolutely, yes.”