Barack Obama celebrates 15 year anniversary of ACA by joining BlueSky

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?

The ACA was the best that could be done at the time, but it is a steaming turd and needs to be replaced with Universal Healthcare.
- America: The best we can do is a steaming turd
  
  But did you say thank you today to the president?
- I disagree. Democrats had the presidency, the house and the senate (filibuster proof). They chose a republican friendly solution that was just a bandaid on a broken system.
  All it did was piss off republicans and give them a rallying point while doing nothing to encourage democrats to vote.
  They should have had the balls to create a system that actually fixed the problems, but they didn’t.
  
  There were like one or two very conservative Dems who derailed the single payer option when they had the filibuster proof majority. The main problem is not getting a solid party wide understanding of the goals they are aiming for ahead of the chances to do something about it.
  
  They only had a filibuster-proof senate counting the independent Joe Lieberman who caucused with democrats. Lieberman (and a few other dems tbh) wouldn’t support a single payer system, so the ACA was the best they could do.
  
  controlled opposition.
- IIRC, at the time Dems had the majority and still the ACA got bastardized before the pubes would let it pass. Personally, I’d consider it a failure.
  
  ACA actually took a supermajority to pass, meaning the 58 Dems and 2 Independents of 2010 senate. They definitely faced the consequences of it, of outrage from both sides, too, since they haven't even gotten 50 senators in an election since the 2013 congress.
- the umpteenth bill to repeal it was introduced on jan 3rd but Luigi happened, ao I think they decided to put it on the backburner.
- It is universal. I guarantee you Obama would agree 100% with a European style single payer system, which is what I think you mean.
  
  It is not universal. There is a coverage gap just below the poverty line, between losing eligibility for Medicaid, and becoming eligible for ACA premium subsidies. Just a complete lack of coverage for the people with the greatest need.
  (Edit: to be fair, that gap was supposed to be filled by Medicaid expansion, but that largely fell through)
  The fundamental reliance on private insurers is the biggest gap in universality. Public healthcare is subject to the private sector's willingness to permit treatment. With some companies boasting >30% denial rates, that "gap" is a gaping chasm.
  
  It's not universal, it's based on income. When I signed up for the ACA I put down my income at $3,000 a month, which makes my monthly bill $30.19 a month. If my average income for the year exceeds $3,000, I owe the difference to the government.
  My small income works for me because I live alone and don't have any dependents. But if I had kids I would need to double or triple my income to support them, in which case my monthly ACA payment would also increase. It's possible for people with families to be priced out of the ACA.
  It's definitely not universal.
  
  Nah that would hurt our GDP too much and eliminate too many jobs.

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
  
  This is the constant Democratic Party refrain. We sure wish we could have done {insert good thing} but when the iron was hot, by golly, we just couldn’t find our hammer.
  Then the iron got cold so we had to, shucks, pass a version of the bill that was much more attractive to our donors and screw over the voters.
  Golly gee willickers, what rotten luck.
  Meanwhile the GOP with the slimmest majority and 3 turncoat Dems. “Time to rewrite the tax code, no need to type it up frank just scribble it in the margin, we will figure out how many billions to give the wealthy once it’s passed”
  
  why is it the only kennedies who died were the ones who didn't deserve it
  
  The ACA did NOT pass via reconciliation. It passed with supermajority after the DNC convinced 2 independents to vote with them.
- That's not true at all, they never had a true supermajority because they only had 58 DNC, to begin with and the caucusing Independent Joe Lieberman voted against Public Option making it dead in the water.
  I guarantee you that if you supported the DNC long enough to get an actual 60 supermajority the likes of which have not been achieved since 1979, then all of your current worries would become a thing of the past.
- 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.
  
  Incorrect, it was 58 DNC and for only 72 days.
  
  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.

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

ACA sucks, but okay. ACA was a compromise. Not an example of inspiring change.
- Yeah, Democrats compromising with Democrats.
- 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?

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.
- Bro literally demonstrably didn't because caucusing independent Joe Lieberman voted against Public Option leaving the DNC dead in the water with 59 and a Republican Filibuster. The DNC count was 58 + 2 ind, and only for 72 days.
  
  Here's an article from 2009 that analyzes this point about the White House during the 111th Congress bit: https://www.politico.com/story/2009/12/what-if-obama-hadnt-ostracized-dean-030752
  Obama White House worked against itself on healthcare reform during that time period. Actively. Lieberman was essentially helping the White House's mission.
  Some of us who were fighting that fight back then haven't forgotten or willfully pulled the wool over our eyes when the turn happened. Some of us were still pissed about abortion disappearing from legistlative priorities immediately after the election.
- 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
  
  Bingo
- 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.

...
People do remember that we ended up with a more conservative system than his Republican opponent wanted, right?
Dems defending the ACA and refusing to keep working on healthcare is a large reason why trump won.
Not to even get into how it's been almost 20 years and the "incremental improvements" that dem ACA detractors never happened, they never even worked towards them...
Every time an elected moderate/neolineral speaks, they're lying to someone. If they were honest they'd never get elected, at least not with a D next to their name
- I'm more excited that Obama joined BlueSky but yes we're long overdue for actual universal healthcare legislation. Like 15 years overdue.

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.
- You think they'd have an election?
  
  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?

Thanks Obomber

thats some obama awards obama stuff right there.

If you go to Blue sky, you'll see a bunch of people who don't understand it took a lot of bobbitting to get a deal the GoP couldn't fuck with, and it was very basic and only helped the poorest Americans. It was the barest start of many things to come, which didn't.
It's important to keep that mind-boggling amount of compromise in mind when looking backward, because that prez tried staying within and respecting the government system. This is what it was before absolutely shitting on the three branches became the norm.
- bobbitting
  what did they need all the severed dicks for?
- Bullshit. It was passed without Republican support. Negotiations were smoke and mirrors because they all were taking big healthcare money.

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.

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.

c/croppingishard
- Sorry, here ya go. Is that cropped enough?
  
  Missing a timestamp
  
  wow you're a talent!

He's still got my vote

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.

Is this what this ACA shill op is about lol
Pathetic fail
- Small progress is progress. Did we need actual universal healthcare 15 years ago? Absolutely. Is Obama a great president anyways? You bet.