ACA would have been EASY to fix....

[eniwetok]

If one wants a system where the health care parasitic middlemen are still allowed to function... it seems the ACA could easily have been fixed. Create that public option, fix the risk corridors Rubio proudly claimed he sabotaged, and stop breaking the market down by counties. It's this latter feature that allows insurers to pick and choose the markets they want to serve... and can mean the choice is down to one company... or even none.

http://wreg.com/2017/03/06/more-than-1000-u-s-counties-down-to-last-insurer-on-affordable-care-act-exchanges/

[MBS]

1. Yeah, that's what I've been thinking.

would have been possible years ago, if the Republicans had more interest in the good of the country than themselves.

[eniwetok]

3. good of the country? HA!

And yet have the Dems ever really gone for the jugular to defend ACA?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028774535

[still_one]

2. Medicare for all. Of course that assumes they want to help people

which they don't

[randr]

4. Once Repubs started the Kill Obamacare mantra

They lost their minds. Never understood what is was, never thought about how to improve it, never had a single god damn plan other than kill it.

[pat_k]

5. Dems need to intro their own "fix it" plan... not just oppose Rs

And whatever that plan is, it must be connected to making the case for the REAL goal -- th absolute necessity -- to provide Equal Access to basic health care for EVERYONE. (Public option "fix" is the best bet because it can be so easily connected to the ultimate goal, and is DOABLE. Voters just need to be inspired to vote more Dems in to get it done. They must be out there making the case NOW!)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=8773578

[eniwetok]

6. watch out about the term "Equal Access"

Equal Access for right wingers is you have a right to buy insurance... not that you can afford it.

[pat_k]

7. Better way to frame? In my mind...

"equal access to health care" as the goal bypasses insurance. Access to health care is necessarily "unequal" with such a bizarre tapestry of different costs and hoops.

But, we must avoid falling into traps. What is a better way to frame?

However framed, "fix it" steps proposed need to be connected to the broader, overarching goal/principle we are working toward.

[eniwetok]

8. I just repeating a warning from Thom Hartmann

The Right loves Orwellian terms that often mean the opposite of what they seem. "Equal access" to the Right can mean that every ER has to provide some care... OR access to insurance, which someone might not be able to afford.

[pat_k]

9. Thx. Kinda like what's happening to "religious freedom"

On the right looks like "religious freedom' now means "screw over other people's civil rights"

[eniwetok]

10. ROTF...

Yup, it's VERY Orwellian to reframe social conservatives as "victims" because someone opposes their use of government power to impose their views on those who don't share them. Which raises the issue of someone like Scalia who wanted to do just that... and right wingers never caught on. He, like Bork, wanted to negate the Ninth Amendment, a core rule of construction for the Constitution that said government powers were limited to those specified... and ALL rights not surrendered to create those powers were intact. He wanted to turn the US into a system where government had that power... except for the rights (common law) he approved of, and any NEW rights could not be protected by the courts but had to be created legislatively. This is why he's consistently ruled against gay rights. Scalia's views in this regard were largely a bastardization of the Constitution yet the Right claimed he was a great defender of the Constitution.