The long game of Obamacare

[sheshe2]

Many of you will remember the great debate that happened on the left as Obamacare worked its way through the Senate. Far too many people prioritized only one thing...the public option. Today I'm convinced that many of them never really knew what the public option was - the requirement that all state health care exchanges include at least one public insurance option - and instead equated it with a single payer system. President Obama has consistently been criticized on the left for failing to support single payer and that critique got equated with the simple idea of a public option on the exchanges.

Obama 2008

In addition to worrying about job losses during the great recession, President Obama talked about the fact that so many people rely on their employer for health insurance. Any move towards single payer would have to de-couple health insurance from employment.


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Republicans will use this as an example of the havoc they envision coming from Obamacare and I've already seen too many liberals light their hair on fire about it as well. Whether or not employers will provide a subsidy in pay that is the equivalent of what they have been spending to purchase insurance is - of course - a concern.

But what I see in all of this is the extremely effective long game that is so typical of President Obama. He knew at the outset that if he championed the cause of single payer, he would never get it through Congress. And so instead he put in place a system that not only addresses significant immediate concerns, it will slowly but surely move us in the direction of decoupling health insurance from employment - opening up a whole range of possibilities.

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http://immasmartypants.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-long-game-of-obamacare.html#comment-form

The comment that was posted could stand as an OP itself. Good read.



*******************This is Posted in The Barack Obama Group****************************