Oh, I think quite a few harsh lessons were imparted since the passage of the ACA on March 21, 2010.
When people started figuring out just what was in that bill,
only after the bill was passed, and how it was born out of
secretive negotiations the White House held with Big PhRMA and Big Health Insurance, it was not acceptable to a great many people.
What could people do about a much-ballyhooed health insurance reform bill that cynically had nothing for the majority of people until 2014,
four years later? People need help NOW.
They waited. And
they saw who needed their attention at the ballot box.
HERE THEY ARE: *Democratic* YES votes on Stupak anti-abortion amendment , November 7, 2009
And they saw even more.
11 Democrats voted against passage of Emergency Unemployment Compensation Continuation, November 18, 2010
Of the eleven Democrats who voted against extending those emergency unemployment benefits:
All of them are
Blue Dogs.
Seven of them were defeated in the 2010 election. Another one of them is retiring. They had nothing to lose. So they voted against helping the people.
They are:
1. Allen Boyd (FL 2nd)
2. Bobby Bright (Alabama 2nd)
3. Lincoln Davis (TN 5th)
4. Baron Hill (Indiana 9th)
5. Walt Minnick (Idaho 1st)
6. Glen Nye (VA 2nd)
7. Gene Taylor (Mississippi 4th)
8. Marion Berry (Arkansas 1st) Retiring
Good riddance.
The remaining three of them were re-elected in 2010.
They are:
1. Jim Cooper (TN 5th)
2. Collin Peterson (Minnesota 7th)
3. Heath Shuler (NC 11th)
An update to the remaining three Blue Dogs in that list:
Heath Shuler will not seek reelection or run for governor in 2012, February 2, 2012
Only Cooper and Peterson remain, and they are running for re-election in 2012.
The "Republican Wave" of 2010 was the gleeful media narrative to obscure the Blue Dog annihilation by the voters.
Lots of lessons learned, I would say.
There is a specific group of people who bury any consideration of expanding Medicare to everyone, because they have profited from that action for decades.
There is another, much larger group of people who see how the merciless profit motive debases the quality of health and life for the public, and who are now unwilling to allow our health to be at the mercy of The Profit Seekers any longer.
What will be very interesting is
how this conservative Supreme Court will rule on the Affordable Care Act.
All of this confusing, time-delayed, lack of cost-controlled mish-mash of insurance reform masquerading as "health care reform" should be thrown out.
Expansion of Medicare for everyone could begin immediately, and be completed in a relatively short time period, as the program is currently in place, works well, people understand it and people also love it.
---"But, we CAN'T START OVER!"---, scream a small group.
That isn't "starting over" (as the profit protectors shriek). It is building on what is already in place and what works.
As we have seen, issues that affect the public, that are not properly addressed with said public at the outset, have a way of returning with a vengeance.
