So, the question remains. If a repeal bill could get through the Senate a year ago, why can’t you it now. That’s the question that needs to be asked.
Pass the repeal and then put a well crafted bill that returns coverage to those who have it, plus tort reform and across state line competition to lower costs. Dare the senate red state democrats up in 2018 to vote against it.
Your question (answered often btw)
“If a repeal bill could get thru the Senate a year ago, what can’t it now?”
Answer: A year ago the Dems didn’t bother with a filibuster because they knew Obama would not sign it.
Now you can sneer at that, or you can accept it as fact. They had no need to go to the administrative effort to filibuster when it would not be signed. Now that there is a risk of signature, they would filibuster.
We don’t have 60 votes. In 2009, they did.
Then watch medicine become affordable to a larger range of people than has been true for half a century at least, medicine that becomes a household expense instead of an impoverishment system. Insurance would become far less important than it has been for decades. it would, in fact, become Insurance, which it now is not. Now it is a system for funneling huge amounts of money to government agencies and to lawyers and insurance companies and provide reliable voting constituencies for politicians. In the market almost all that money would be available in citizens' pockets to pay for medical care and for real insurance, that commodity for financing extreme and uncommon events. "Insurance" that "covers" everything is merely a medical prepayment plan in which only a small fraction of the money goes to medical care and the rest goes to provide a high incomes for bureaucrats and insurance CEOs and clerks.