What happens now?

[anvi]

ACA is Great Society all over again. Taxes and regulatory burden for people who work. Subsidies and anti-employment for the jobless.

Aggregate, I think you're a smart guy.  But your continuous characterizations of the ACA as a Great Society plan is just repetition of partisan-manufactured nonsense.  First of all, though I know these links have been posted many times on this forum, I have to post them again.  Except for the differences between Medicaid expansion, extended coverage for dependents and tort reform provisions, ACA, including the mandate, state exchanges, purchasing subsidies for poors, preventive care regulations and Medicaid Advantage plan subsidy cuts, copied extensive amounts from the '93 Senate Bill drafted by Chafee and co-sponsored by 19 Pubs, and defended in the linked interview by former Minnesota Pub Durenberger.  Is it your contention that the '93 Senate Republican caucus was on a Lyndon Johnson trip?

http://kaiserhealthnews.org/022310-bill-comparison/

http://kaiserhealthnews.org/durenberger-1993-gop-bill-q-and-a/

The vast majority of ACA's provisions were Republican boilerplate from the late '80's/early '90's all the way till Romney put his weight behind the Mass. bill, which was itself designed by the same consulted he hired to construct it who ended up working on ACA.  ACA was a compromise bill, and Pubs throwing all these ridiculous names at it just masks both how much their own fingerprints are all over it and how, unless they get 110% of what they want at the time and only that, they pan any comprehensive health insurance bill any Dem puts forward as being socialist.  Medicare for everyone who opts in--that's a Great Society program, and it's the one Obama blew off so he could put ACA forward.  More than that, he had to be pushed into endorsing ACA, because at the beginning he opposed a mandate for all and preferred a mandate to cover children only.  More than that, the "public option," an additional subsidy for poors that had an income cap attached, that was endorsed by Obama got axed by Senate Dems--was that another LBJ tactic?  Apart from the Medicaid expansion, the ACA effectively lands  boatloads of new customers into the waiting ships of private insurers in exchange for some coverage regulations.  FDR and LBJ wouldn't have done that kind of thing--they were into creating social insurance programs directly and thoroughly financed by taxation and run by government boards.  

Just because damning labels catch on with a public that doesn't bother to study legislation doesn't make the labels accurate.  And, every once in a while, because this issue ticks me off, I'm going to continue to say so in my usual long-winded way.  I don't like ACA; it did get fractured into an incoherent and inadequately financed mess by the time it became law, and in the long run, it won't work.  But by the time it fails, and the country is drowning even more desparately in red ink than it is now as uncontrolled health care cost inflation meets the perfect demographic storm, the only ways to fix it will be through reforms that will make you and the rest of the blue avatars here wish you could dial the clock back to 1993, or 2009.  Playing "gotcha" might be fun now, and it might even win you some elections along the way, but the long run consequences of all our failures, Dem and Pub, to strike a reasonable compromise when we had the chance will not be pretty.

[King]

Christ there are literally hundreds of things the GOP Congress can get Obama to sign. They better not go after inksing Obamacare as their #1 priority.

[krazen1211]

Surely. Your own state has elected a very scary female that chills my bones.

And of course you use 'female' as a noun.

Isn't this where you pull a coakley, sneer at everyone, and wonder why people don't vote for you?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Surely. Your own state has elected a very scary female that chills my bones.

And of course you use 'female' as a noun.

Isn't this where you pull a coakley, sneer at everyone, and wonder why people don't vote for you?

I know good and well that I'd make a poor candidate for office, and I know good and well why Coakley does, and I don't appreciate the intimation that I'm as lacking in self-awareness as she is, thank you.

[AggregateDemand]

Aggregate, I think you're a smart guy.  But your continuous characterizations of the ACA as a Great Society plan is just repetition of partisan-manufactured nonsense.

A majority of the spending in ACA is Medicaid expansion so the bill is quite literally more Great Society. Furthermore, comparing the structure of the 1993 Republican bill with 2010 ACA, while ignoring the details regarding the standard insurance policies, is just a lazy attempt to make moderate Republicans glom on to the ACA.

The requirements of standard insurance products and ownership of the exchanges ARE the bill because insurance socializes costs, and the detailed provisions ultimately decide how much money will be transferred between various demographics. The product and services also affect the real impact of the Medicare cuts (reduction in cost growth).

Republicans have different ideas about what qualifies as basic insurance, and how costs should be socialized. The devil is in the details.

[pbrower2a]

The Republicans will serve the 1% with efforts to impoverish everyone else to enrich them. They will try to further consolidate power by culling the vote .

[IceSpear]

http://youtu.be/Lu5SJcNp0J0?t=11s

[ILoveTheSmellOfTheSenate]

What happens now?  Well, between now and end of year:

Nov '14:  Obama plays another 5 rounds of golf.

Nov-Dec '14: Obama announces, between the front and back nines, that his administration will not get further involved in Iraq to attempt to stop ISIS and ISIS rolls to new victories.

Dec '14:  Obama plays another 6 rounds of golf.

Dec '14: LA Senate run-off goes to GOP, cementing 9 Senate pickups.

Dec '14: ~50 dead in new round of Ferguson riots following no indictment of police officer.  Public opinion polls show 70% of US public sides with officer.

Christmas Weekend '14:  Obama, believing he is more important than Congress, declares amnesty and all hell breaks loose (new wave of illegals storm boarder, gun sales begin to hit new records, impeachment begins).

Jan '15:  Iraq falls to ISIS.

Jan '15:  Obama plays another 10 rounds of golf.

Jan '15:  Hillary signs up for food stamps, claiming she shares the pain of the poor.

Feb '15: Obama's approval sinks to around 33%.  Biden is very giddy and flashes his cheesy smile.  Dems start to opening talk about Obama resigning, but stop short of calling for his resignation out of fear that Biden would be worse. 

Feb '15: Obama, sighting the racial stress of being the first black US president, plays another 12 rounds of golf.

I hope you didn't spend too long on this.

Why, were you expecting it sooner?  I used only the required time, no more. 

[ILoveTheSmellOfTheSenate]

Congratulations America on electing even more whackjobs. You get what you vote for. Enjoy two years of pure insanity, and remember, it's all your fault. The crazy train has just arrived, all aboard!

Did you just say, "train"?

Perhaps you haven't heard, but....the beat goes on.  And the train won't stop!

[MalaspinaGold]

President Romney agrees with you after that spectacular 2010 performance.

[Beet]

Aggregate, I think you're a smart guy.  But your continuous characterizations of the ACA as a Great Society plan is just repetition of partisan-manufactured nonsense.

A majority of the spending in ACA is Medicaid expansion so the bill is quite literally more Great Society. Furthermore, comparing the structure of the 1993 Republican bill with 2010 ACA, while ignoring the details regarding the standard insurance policies, is just a lazy attempt to make moderate Republicans glom on to the ACA.

The details of Chafee's standard insurance policy were to be up to a National Insurers' Health Commission, in combination with HHS. anvi isn't being lazy by not pointing them out because they literally were never promulgated. But there's little reason to believe they would be substantially different from the standard packages available in the ACA.

[ILoveTheSmellOfTheSenate]

President Romney agrees with you after that spectacular 2010 performance.

Romney was a loser and was only chosen because the field was very weak.   The GOP base tried-on every other candidate, which is why there was a new flavor-of-the-month every month.  We tried Perry, Cain, Newt (and several others I can't recall), but they were all duds.  

Romney was just the least embarrassing dud, so he was reluctantly chosen as the nominee.  But he was an extremely weak candidate and stood for nothing but flip-flopping.    

Obama was beatable in 2012, the GOP just didn't have any good candidates running.  And, the problem continues to this day - there is not a seasoned GOP candidate that excites the base.  And the only ones that do excite the base (e.g. Cruz) are way too bombastic to be presidential material.

[HAnnA MArin County]

West Virginia elected a female to the senate and that's more than Rhode Island can say. South Carolina elected a black man to the senate and that's more than Illinois can say. States like Rhode Island and Illinois seem to be favoring white men, but this country is made up of so much more. So much for the liberal myths of racism and sexism in the south. Nanananananah!

Rhode Island elected a female Governor. Illinois elected Barack Obama before South Carolina elected Tim Scott.

You lose. #GameOver