2010: WI Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) refuses to compromise on ACA

[SingingAnalyst]

In 2010, Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) reluctantly voted for the ACA ("Obamacare") only after having received assurances from the Obama Administration that the law would not require insurance companies to cover abortions.

As a result, (1) the ACA passed by a razor-thin margin, without a single GOP vote; (2) the backlash against Stupak was intense; he did not seek re-election and his seat has been held by the GOP ever since; (3) the assurances were vacated anyway by future executive action (once the GOP controlled Congress).

What if Stupak had refused to go along? One possibility is: (1) a weaker ACA, without the same coverage requirements for abortion and contraception, would have been passed after legislators went back to the drawing board; (2) the Dems' 2010 losses in the House and possibly Senate are less severe; (3) looking ahead to 2016, the sharp rightward turn in MI's Upper Peninsula (along with other parts of the state) doesn't happen and Clinton narrowly carries MI in 2016.

Any other thoughts? Would the ACA have existed much as it did during the balance of Obama's term? Would Trump have won without MI? Would the ACA still exist today and be strengthened?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I suspect that the NARAL will have to heel on this one.

[Kingpoleon]

I suspect an alternate proposal, such as Wyden-Bennett or BaucusCare, would be passed with some modifications.

[The Mikado]

Honestly, the Dems spending the first year of the Administration through Feb 2010 seeking Healthcare reform and then failing to pass anything would be even worse than ACA in terms of what it would to the Dems' reputation. They'd get all the blame and hate of ACA and not have anything to show for it.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I suspect an alternate proposal, such as Wyden-Bennett or BaucusCare, would be passed with some modifications.

BaucusCare/Wyden-Bennett are both from 2008 and are too the left of the final Obamacare. At the time Obama was supporting a public option without an individual mandate, which Clinton attacked because it didn't give everyone coverage. CLinton supported an individual mandate without a public option. By the time 2010 rolled around, ACA had moved to the right of Clinton in the hopes of trying to appease various dissenting Dems to cobble together enough votes to pass giving up on the public option, but keeping the individual mandate.

BaucusCare/Wyden-Bennett were also more disruptive because they sought to move away from employer based care.

Neither would have passed the Senate. Robert Bennett himself was perfectly willing to go along with voting against any healthcare plan, because he was an establishment/business wing GOP shill and that is what they wanted. So yes, he would have voted against his own bill from 2008, in late 2009/early 2010 and once Scott Brown was sworn in, any healthcare plan was dead.

All they could do was pass what the Senate had passed in December, in the House and use budget reconciliation to touch it up afterwards.

There would have been no going back to the drawing board, there would have been no healthcare bill passing. And the impact on 2010 would have been either nothing or would have made it substantially worse. 2010 was decided because Wall Street got a bailout and Main Street didn't, and the economy was still horrendous for most everyone, healthcare was at most a side note politically and a distraction and waste of political capital for the Democrats in terms of the issues that ultimately decided 2010.

[The Mikado]

There would have been no going back to the drawing board, there would have been no healthcare bill passing. And the impact on 2010 would have been either nothing or would have made it substantially worse. 2010 was decided because Wall Street got a bailout and Main Street didn't, and the economy was still horrendous for most everyone, healthcare was at most a side note politically and a distraction and waste of political capital for the Democrats in terms of the issues that ultimately decided 2010.

This is dead on. It was ACA or nothing by that point, and if the Dems in the House had sabotaged it, it would have been nothing. This would have had zero benefit to the Dems in 2010.