“Tell us once again how smart you are. “
Well, actually, they were pretty smart. It was never about insurance. There were several ways to insure the uninsured without taking over and upending one fifth of the nation’s economy. It was about control. I read some of the original documentation on O. care and one of the provisos, just like in Canada and the UK, was that people could have their coverage cancelled by name, as individuals, by the government. Notice that there are few people who speak out about how terrible care is in Canada and the UK. If that’s not a control mechanism that could be used to stop anybody criticizing the government, then I don’t know what is.
On the good side, it was one of the dramatic overreaches that gave us President Trump. We’d probably never have had Nixon without LBJ, or Reagan without Carter. We almost certainly wouldn’t have had Trump without Obama. Our politics swings like a pendulum from one extreme to another. It must drive our allies crazy. Hopefully, we’ll have 16 years of conservative anti-regulatory government.
Also on the good side, I suspect that a combination of abysmal education will result in a revolution of AI led, internet based, education at home. That will be a nail in liberalism’s coffin.
I don’t think they were too smart. Everyone will be jeopardized by this thing.
BTW, I worked in a place where we provided (administered) state-coverage to the poor for 2 states. We were bought out. Knowing I’d be on the street, I encouraged some of the group of the new owners (Centene) to keep us intact and just take the profits. The CEO walked by my desk and said hello to me (first I knew something was up).
They just patted me on the head and had a little chuckle about my suggestion.
Within 2 years, they’d screwed the whole thing up and lost the contracts.
But, hey, what did I know? They pretty much just shook their heads at my suggestion.