I think you can be disappointed Obama wasn't able to fix it. But blaming him for something that ultimately involves thousands of politicians and special interest groups is, I feel, unfair.
a much better question would be "who in congress was responsible for our not being able to crate modern public healthcare system?"
The answer is certainly not the liberal/progressive wing of the Democratic party.
The existing policy is a compromise that liberals signed off on to improve the conditions of the worst off, but they were not able to create the kind of conceptually coherent total overhaul we would require to make the system rational.
I agree with you that blaming Obama for a failure of leadership in this situation is borderline absurd, but it's a simple narrative that is easy to regurgitate in a complex, frustrating world, so we have to forgive people for believing it, to some extent.
What's absurd is that there were many problems in healthcare 1.0 that needed fixing, and Obamacare chose to instead solidify the position of health insurance providers, which was central to the problems in 1.0. Now we have 2.0 and the insurance companies have their business model baked into the law even more strongly.
A one page bill could probably fix the whole thing
* move tax benefit of buying insurance from employer to employee (why is my company involved in my health insurance anyway?)
* allow buying of insurance across state lines
* require same price for all services, tests, medicines regardless of payer
* require those prices to be public
* declare a single 'pool' or market for insurance (just like federal employees have)
The bill passed in the Senate by 60-39 with all republicans voting against except for Jim Bunning who did not vote. With 58 Democrat and 2 Independent votes the Republicans weren't able to filibuster. After the bill passed the senate a special election to replace Ted Kennedy in the senate was won by a Republican, so the Democrats no longer had a super majority in the Senate, and so the decision was made that the house should pass the Senates bill as they didn't think voting on a house bill would pass the senate now that the Republicans had 41 votes which was enough to filibuster.
> The existing policy is a compromise that liberals signed off on to improve the conditions of the worst off
The only compromises happened between members of the Democrat party, between moderates and progressives.
> I agree with you that blaming Obama for a failure of leadership in this situation is borderline absurd
I agree that there are likely a lot of compromises that happened behind the scenes that we didn't see, but there has to be some ownership of that bill by President Obama. It was his marquee bill at a time when some Democrats were urging him not to tackle it, he had a super majority in the senate and the house. He signed it into law, he set the agenda, I think it's fair to hold him accountable for the outcome, even if it's not exactly what he wanted, it's still what was passed and if he didn't like it they could have scrapped it to try again.
great response and research. I agree with you that Obama shares a solid share of responsibility - but more importantly I think the enormous amount of effort required to keep a supermajority in line to pass the legislation is the real story.
the healthcare reform was a result of complicated partisan maneuvering to get over the finish line. many of those bandaids people complain about are a direct result of strong republican opposition. so much so that the final bill that passed was nowhere near what obama or anyone wanted. Blaming Obama and not the opposition in congress for any of this mess is really shortsighted.
if you really want to know the gory details of this process and healthcare in america read the excellent book by Steve brill:America's Bitter Pill.
and one more thing, you had insurance now but what happens in you lose your job or god forbid take a break for a few month to care for somebody.
The Democrats passed the bill in the senate 60-39, with 2 independents voting for, and all Republicans voting against. Then that bill was passed in the house with a vote of 219–212 with 34 Democrats and all 178 Republicans voting against it. This wasn't partisan, this was Democrats passing a bill without any Republican votes. The band-aids were to get moderate Democrats on board.
are you trolling? if you are serious about finding out read the book, he explains the horsetrading that was needed to pass the bill.
for a complex bill like that you cannot take one thing in isolation and complain you have to look at the context. Also, again, its congress not him. if you are gonna complain, complain about republicans that kept watering down the obamacare under bad faith negotiations (though eventually it passed without any red support).
