> I think it's not that he didn't, but he couldn't, with the most obstructive Congress in modern history
Ironically, some of that might have been his own doing, though. The healthcare reform was passed essentially without republican support; I think that's a very rare example of major [healthcare] legislation that was not passed with bi-partisan support. Not doing more to bring R's on board likely burned lots of political capital and hardened opposition to him in Congress. I'm not saying Obama didn't try at all to bring R's on board, just that a bit more effort might have result in a more cooperative Congress.
The GOP congress decided to bring Obama down from the start, and never gave an inch. He tried valiantly to collaborate and compromise but the GOP didn’t have the political capacity to work with Obama for fear of being challenged in primaries from the right.
You’re right that the ACA ended up being a political disaster for the Democrats though.
The ACA was basically the same as “RomneyCare” in MA, and was a style of healthcare reform supported by mainstream center-right Republicans and some center-left Democrats (most Democrats wanted a single payer plan, or at least a public option, but took what they could get because the healthcare system was/is at a breaking point), but once Obama’s name was on it they all decided to throw everything they could against it.
The GOP campaigned hard against the ACA after it passed, and won massively in the midterm elections in 2010 on the back of wall-to-wall anti-ACA messaging on right-leaning media and a huge amount of organizing and spending (the first post-Citizens United election). They took control of the House, Senate, and many state legislatures, following which they redrew all the district boundaries to cut Democrats permanently out of competition in the House and many state legislatures.
After the crushing defeat in 2010, there weren’t enough Senate seats up for grabs in 2012 for the Democrats to regain control. Thus Obama had to deal with 6 years of GOP control, which has been the most obstructionist Congress in US history. As soon as McConnell won in 2010 he publicly declared that his #1 goal was to make Obama a 1-term president. We had multiple government shutdown threats, unprecedented obstruction of executive appointments including judges at every level of the federal court system, bogus investigation after bogus investigation into e.g. Benghazi, and dozens of purely symbolic votes to repeal the ACA.
> The ACA was basically the same as “RomneyCare” in MA, and was a style of healthcare reform supported by mainstream center-right Republicans
Romneycare never really had widespread support of Republicans at the national level. Or, really, the support of Republicans in general. It was passed by a governor in a state where almost every single elected state legislator is a Democrat, so it's hardly a measure of what to expect Republicans to support when the population they represent is more moderate, conservative, or Republican-affiliated.
Using Romney's actions as governor of MA as a yardstick is a really skewed perspective to try and apply to national politics. Massachusetts has a history of electing Republican governors as a way of placing a "check" on the legislature. Currently, Massachusetts has a Republican governor - but Baker would likely have run under the Democratic party if we were talking about Montana or Kansas instead of Massachusetts.
> and some center-left Democrats (most Democrats wanted a single payer plan, or at least a public option, but took what they could get because the healthcare system was/is at a breaking point)
It was never the case that "most" Democrats wanted a single-payer plan. The public option was more popular within the Democratic party, but even then was very controversial, and didn't have strong enough support from the Democrats.
There was, incidentally, a proposal that did have bipartisan support (the Wyden-Bennett bill), but it fell short of 60 votes.
And to not just push single-payer when they were never going to get Republican support burned a lot of his support on the left. He spent an enormous amount of effort whipping the Democrats to the right in order to pass ACA as the great compromise that he conceived (it was a Heritage Foundation policy after all); and the most controversial part of it (the universal cash penalty for being uninsured) was a Clinton policy that he campaigned against in the primary and won.
He didn't have to bring any Republicans on board. What he had to have was the integrity to push for what he had the mandate to deliver, instead of all of this pre-compromising, losing anyway, then eventually quarter-assing something through presidential fiat or lack of enforcement. If President Obama had chosen to pursue the policies that Candidate Obama had been elected on, the voters would have punished congressmen who got in his way. Instead he had one of the least transparent administrations imaginable, passed a bunch of complex garbage with a million special interest carveouts, and tried to create social change through undemocratic executive action.
Not even remotely close to true. Obama put in a ton of effort into crossing party lines, and was rejected, delayed, lied about - I remember how the discussion of the ACA was going on for months and month and MONTHS of stonewalling, how he went to the Republican retreat to discuss the issue and make some points after most of a summer and fall of obstructionism and demolished Republican arguments effectively enough that Fox cut away from the live broadcast after 20 minutes. I remember the supercommittee, and how the Republican absolutely refused to bend on any of their points, while the Democrats bent on theirs, over and over. The debt ceiling showdowns...
After his first year in office, Obama started getting shit from people on the left because a lot of them thought he was trying too hard to reach across the isle and unify the nation instead of ignoring the obstructionists and getting stuff done.
> Consider that Obama's $787bn stimulus bill of last spring was heavily weighted toward tax cuts, against the advice of many economists, in an effort to win some Republican support. In the end, the bill received not a single Republican vote.
> Consider that he nominated a moderate, pro-prosecution Supreme Court justice, Sonia Sotomayor, only to see her tagged as a racist over some rather innocuous remarks she made about being a "wise Latina".
> Consider, too, that healthcare reform became bogged down in such a compromise-ridden mess because Obama ruled out a single-payer system ahead of time and never strongly backed a government-owned insurance alternative (the "public option") to compete with private insurance companies.
> As with the stimulus bill, the idea was to bring along a few Republican senators thought to hold reasonable views on the subject, such as Charles Grassley of Iowa and Olympia Snowe of Maine. And again, no Republican support was forthcoming, forcing Senate leaders to cut outrageous deals with recalcitrant Democrats Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana.
> Obama's attempts to find compromise solutions did not stop Republicans from labelling him as a radical – or their nutty tea-party allies from calling him a "socialist" and worse. And, in retrospect, that was going to happen no matter what he did. His real problem has been that, to his supporters, he looked as though he'd been sucked into the very system he was elected to reform. Thus an Obama ally like Martha Coakley, a loyal Democratic apparatchik who'd long been criticised for her reluctance to take on political corruption in Massachusetts, became the perfect foil. (Coakley is best known for prosecuting Louise Woodward, a British nanny accused of killing a baby in her care.)
Ironically, some of that might have been his own doing, though. The healthcare reform was passed essentially without republican support; I think that's a very rare example of major [healthcare] legislation that was not passed with bi-partisan support. Not doing more to bring R's on board likely burned lots of political capital and hardened opposition to him in Congress. I'm not saying Obama didn't try at all to bring R's on board, just that a bit more effort might have result in a more cooperative Congress.