Imagine looking past Lindsay Graham or Pete Hegseth and settling on Church Schumer as the real bloodthirsty warmonger. Delusional.

First of all, the price increases of healthcare were rising at exactly the same rate before and after Obamacare so that has nothing to do with the rate increases. Second, there are all sorts of exemptions like if you make less than 150% of the federal poverty level or if the marketplace plan would cost more than 8% of your household income. That means unless you were making $120k a year (which would mean you could definitely afford $800 a month insurance) you would be exempted from the penalty. Basically, if you paid the penalty it’s because you fucked up.

You’re proving my point. The idea of pooling the purchasing power of individuals is the only part that came from the Heritage Foundation and it’s not like that is an original or new idea. That is what Social Security is based on. The rest is just Obama trying to give Republicans reasons not to hate the plan.

That is a myth that originated from the Michael Moore movie Sicko. It’s not actually true, but people keep repeating it like it is.

https://prospect.org/2014/01/03/no-obamacare-republican-proposal/

Obamacare subsidizes healthcare specifically for people who couldn’t afford it before. The only people it penalized were rich people who refused to get healthcare. The fee was waived for most.

So then argue against a for-profit healthcare system. Don’t get pissed at the government for trying to fix a problem.

It always boils down to a conspiracy theory with you people

Keep in mind that the primary thing we elect people to do is to show up and vote. You don’t think that the right is itching for any excuse to throw Dems into jail so they can’t show up to the legislative session and vote?

Lamonica McIver, a NJ state rep, was arrested during inspection of an ICE detention facility. Texas Dem reps had arrest warrants issued after they filed the state to block a vote by denying quorum through their absence. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested protesting ICE. Angie Nixon, a Fla rep, was arrested protesting gerrymandered maps just the other day. Judge Hannah Dugan was arrested for “concealing a migrant”. Calif Sen Alex Padilla was forcibly removed from a press conference for asking questions. NYC Comptroller Bead Lander was arrested for asking ICE for a warrant. There are more.

Lots of reps are using their power. As lawless as the right seems, that is mostly at the top. They can be tripped up at the lower levels using the laws and that is what is being done. They could always do more, but every escalation comes with a cost.

The idea that Romneycare was written by the Heritage Foundation is a myth repeated based on the Michael Moore documentary Sicko. It’s not true.

https://prospect.org/2014/01/03/no-obamacare-republican-proposal/

Let’s say you didn’t have insurance and were just counting on paying out of pocket. You are just living your life and BAM, you have a massive heart attack. Turns out you had an undiagnosed heart defect and there is nothing that could have prevented it or predicted it. You’re taken by ambulance to the hospital where you have open heart surgery and where you stay for weeks to recover. You get a huge bill that you can’t pay. What happens?

The doctors and nurses did a lot of work to keep you alive and they deserve to get paid. The hospital has to keep the lights on. You filing for bankruptcy doesn’t change this. That is why everyone needs to have insurance. This kind of thing can happen to anyone at any time. As a society we can’t just let people die if they can’t afford treatment. Even if you take for-profit companies out of the equation, the whole system collapses with millions of people unable to pay.

That is why everyone has to pay premiums. Part of that payment is for vaccinations and check ups, but part of it is coverage in case catastrophic shit happens. Healthy people get the least back out of the system, but nobody knows if they will still be healthy tomorrow. The bigger the pool of healthy people paying into the system, the less each person needs to pay to cover the people whose luck ran out.

And Romneycare was basically put together by Massachusetts Democrats. Romney just signed it.

It’s funny because that is basically the same argument people used when Social Security was established. A functional society can’t have people just dying in the street. It costs money to fix this, so it is not unreasonable to ask people to pay for it. Everyone needs healthcare eventually whether or not they are insured. People without insurance still get care which raises the prices for everyone who does have insurance. The more people who pay in, the cheaper coverage is for everyone. Making everyone be covered is simply making people pay for what they use. It’s simple economics.

Yeah, I agree private insurance companies suck, but that’s an entirely different problem, i.e.capitslism as a whole.

Hate it all you want, but millions of people have gotten healthcare they otherwise wouldn’t have been able to. That’s just an objective fact.

Without a 60 vote threshold, non-financial bills can be filibustered and blocked. Financial stuff can still be passed through reconciliation, but it’s a much narrower scope.

With a filibuster-proof majority we can pass things like a new voting rights bill, expanding the supreme court, limits on presidential power. We can block the right from taking power undemocratically and strip away the power they have already seized. This is how we fight fascism head on.

They bought into fascist propaganda hook, line, and sinker. The fascist playbook has always been to divide the left with infighting so they can’t provide a unified resistance. It has happened over and over again throughout history, but they can’t put aside minor disagreements to fight a literal existential threat.

Democracy is based on compromise. You can’t always get exactly what you want. Sometimes getting a small improvement is better than stagnation.

There are a lot of people who think ability to make money equals superiority.

Romney may have signed it, but keep in mind Massachusetts is a blue state and the state Senate at that time had 35 Dem seats and only 5 Republican. It was a bipartisan bill, but mostly Democrat.

Continuing with the status quo would have left millions without health insurance, including many with pre-existing conditions who desperately needed it. It wasn’t perfect, but it was an improvement.

There is a fly ramming against my window right now. That doesn’t mean it is doing more than the other flies to knock my house down. No leftist party has come anywhere close to challenging Democrat power. All the third parties combined wouldn’t even come close. Throwing a penny into a well and wishing for another party option would be just as effective as supporting the Greens.

That is so wrong it is astounding. If the ACA is the GOP plan, why did they try and repeal it over 70 times?

The Republican plan is for the poor to die because they believe in social eugenics.

Republicans stripped the fine because that hurt the ACA. Insurance depends on healthy people paying in to cover the sick. The bigger the pool of insured, the lower the costs for everyone. This all falls apart if young, healthy people just chance it and skip having insurance. If you make people pay a fine even if they don’t have insurance, this removes the incentive to skip getting insurance (which keeps prices down).