Quote Originally Posted by cwolff View Post
No dude. It doesn't mean that at all. The Gov't shutdown was to defund all of the ACA. The mandate is something that people discussed targeting but the republicans never achieved a level of organization to make that their one demand. There was another thing going on too and that's precedent. If you think a sitting president is going to weaken the presidency like that you're smoking crack. Why penalize people if they are incapable of getting insurance through no fault of their own? That makes no damn sense at all.
Never underestimate the willingness of either party to grand-stand in whatever way they can if they think it will hurt the public opinion of the other. Sometimes they backfire, but usually, their highly-paid army of advisors and pollsters minimize the risk.

I know you guys just say/repeat this stuff because it's argumentative and fits your partyline. Don't you ever think objectively though? You have all this freedom to think for yourself, to learn, to read up on issues yet you never get above the basest bullshit.
I'm very much against ACA, not because of any of this freedom nonsense...I mean sure, I do think it's trampling my rights, but hey...we've been rolling over for that for at least 100 years, why stop now?

My issue with it mainly is that it's a giant pile of shit, even as far as massive government programs go. Almost a thousand pages of loopholes and Hill talk and smoke and mirrors. The people who wrote it even admit they don't understand it fully.
It's creating thousands of new positions in the IRS, and giving them powers they shouldn't have...the "made-up scandal" about them targeting Conservative groups is a good example. Additionally, a LOT of people have raised concerns about the safety of private medical information, and this has already proven to be a problem. I think it tries to do too much. We could have regulated the health insurance industry without all this extra stuff.