I think you are onto something, but I would question what was the actual intention in this 2,000+ page law that, I bet, not a single person read in its entirety, and dozens of faceless monkey “experts” with high degrees from our most expensive universities contributed to writing. No, the the intentions of Obamacare were nothing more or less than just “GOOD”, and that was enough for the Demo congresscritters to vote Ay. The two principal designers Dr Ezekiel Emanuel and Peter Orszag might have had some utopian ideas in mind, but the 2,000+ pages got away from them.
Please note that I am not saying that my suppositions are THE intentions of Obamacare, I am postulating that they are two of many. With all those writers, plus the “designers”, and 2k+ pages, many a wish was included. However, a lot of the writing and designing was undoubtedly done by those who do see dependency as enhancing their political vision, power and capital, and few of those “Demo congresscritters” you mention would miss that, even if they were only briefed by staff who in turn had only skimmed though the bill.
I would also ask why you think the intentions were necessarily good? Perhaps when Obama came into office I might have accepted that premise — that he and his cohorts are mostly just misguided. Senator Paul Simon once talked to my church’s teen Bible Class, and I came away from that convinced that he was a decent person, even if I disagreed with him in many political areas. One of my best friends is (mostly) lib. But after seeing this Administration and its support cast in action to date, I just don’t see how that conclusion of misguided good intentions can be drawn for most of it. Not after Benghazi, IRS, NSA, Fast and Furious... Did you see Sen. Diane Feinstein saying of “Eric Snowden” (paraphrasal), “I want (to get) him.” The tone and look in her face would be enough to make any sane person go running to the Wicked Witch of the East for solace and refuge (which is apparently sort of what happened.)
Also, please do not focus on the dependency aspect alone. I think that “29 hours” figure was carefully chosen to make the maximum impact on the U1 unemployment rate.