cartera45

No one has to sell me on the public option. I was very disappointed that the administration caved on that. There wasn't even an effort to sell it. I am truly no fan of the piece of legislation that resulted, but I can't stand it when attacks are just lame and uninformed. If people spent as much time reading what the bill actually says instead of what the right wing pundits make up, there would be informed, productive discussions. I guess that is how President Obama felt too.

EMM1

"You may be right about this--if you are, it might be necessary to toughen the individual mandate. See, I'm willing to have changes in the law, as needed."

Good luck with that. So you concede that the gutless wonder decided that he was better off having an unworkable pile of garbage passed and praying that some future Congress would fix the massive problems created by the pile of garbage without any assurance that the fixes would pass.

Now there's a recipe for great public policy.

cartera45

Back when the individual mandate was a Republican idea, were details given as to how to enforce it? I know that McCain brought it up when the issue was HillaryCare but I don't recall any details.

EMM1

The question of who first brought up the idea of the individual mandate is irrelevant. The point is that the gutless wonder and his buddies were desperate to get anything through Congress that he could call reform and didn't care if it was a bad bill or not. And that is all on him.

And to think that someone in the paper compared him to LBJ today. Ridiculous.

Jordcin

If Romney wasn't such a flip-flopping wuss he would be able to help out. Massachusetts has a 97% success rate on people being insured thanks to him and the local senate.

Hunt

I blame the weakness of the law on the lying GOP frauds and their masters. Since we're calling names.

EMM1

I have no brief for the GOP and believe that a single payer plan would be by far the best option. The point is that, given political reality (generated in part by the gutless wonder's refusal to take a firm stand early in the process), the ultimate choice was between doing nothing and passing a pile of garbage that in my view on balance made things worse. Desperate for anything that looked like a victory, for political reasons Obama et. al. chose the latter course. And that's on them.

Cardinal Fang

Fines. And the Affordable Care Act does impose fines, but they're not big enough.

Hunt

Here's another example of how the emergence of the Tea Party is causing problems for both parties. Back when the individual mandate was a GOP idea, it was good, because it protected the insurance companies. But later, it emerged as something that Tea Party leaders could use to rile up their followers, and the Republicans had to change their tune. It will be interesting to see what the establishment Republicans actually do.