Obamacare not affordable

[TaraJo]

Actually, Obama capitulated on single-payer before they ever got started. The Dems aren't THAT different from the republicunts. It is merely a matter of degree.

That's kinda true. Obama spent a good chunk of his first term trying, desperately to get along with Republicans, even while they made it clear they were going to oppose anything he did on general principal. Healthcare was one of those things. He left the public option off the bill (which I think would have made it really groundbreaking) and didn't even think about a single payer system and he did it because he thought the Republicans wouldn't allow it. Sure enough, they don't care and they're still crying bloody murder.

Not to mention all the times they're about to drive the nation over the fiscal cliff. Obama always wound up blinking first and John Boehner was bragging about how his party got 90-something percent of what they wanted out of the bill... and, unfortunately, what he wanted was to shash social programs, schools, fire departments, police and whatever you do, DON'T RAISE TAXES ON THE MILLIONAIRES.

I don't think Obama is quite so willing to play nice with them now. He actually let them shut down the government for a while and the GOP were the ones who wound up looking bad over it. If todays politicians were fighting over Obamacare, I don't think Obama would have given in quite as easily.

As for the usefulness of Obamacare, that's unquestionable to me. I've seen a lot of shady actions by insurance companies. Specifically, it wasn't uncommon at all for them to take your money for years and years and years and when you actually do get sick with something serious, they turn around and tell you they aren't covering the procedure you need or that they aren't covering you at all anymore because you had some pre-existing condition or something. Part of Obamacare is eliminating that nonsense. They can't refuse to cover most treatments and they can't refuse to cover somenoe (or their treatment) because of a pre-existing condition. In fact, the individual mandate was put in there specifically to protect insurance companies because if they can't deny coverage to people for pre existing conditions, there will probably be a lot of people (especially young people) who aren't going to get any health insurance at all unless and until they actually get sick. The individual mandate is the governmens way of saying "You can't do that."