Beneath the ugly Civil War aspect, Republican ACA nit-picking is useful

[cthulu2016]

What is going on is not real helpful because the Republicans are ill-intended and seek nothing less than the destruction of the USA, but in concept their obsessive hunt for any flaw in the ACA is something that should be done by somebody. It is a desirable feature of a two-party system that neither side can do anything without that action facing withering critique.

In practice, however, that often fails.

In the current instance, the ACA is flawed by Republican design. The ACA should have been amended every two weeks for the last several years and been the subject of continual hearings over-seeing the implementation planning.

Instead, since the Republican position was the elimination of the ACA, improving it was never on the table. There was no dialogue with Congress, and no possibility of good changes in subsequent legislation. Republicans wanted the ACA to fail, so any change that could have passed would have been a malignant change.

In the case of the ACA, the warring parties did not share a desire for the common good. The Republicans wanted bad outcomes.


In a striking reversed instance of the phenomenon, we had the Iraq War. Unlike the ACA, with its Republican hyper-partisanship, we had the tragedy of patriotic bi-partisanship where the Democratic Party (particularly in the Senate) did an insufficient job of opposition, forming a de facto bipartisan one-party system for purposes of Iraq, and the GWOT in general.

(Just imagine the case for war with Iraq being subjected to real hearings suitable to something so important—geared toward breaking down the rationale if such breakage was possible. Such stress-testing of a cause for war is not unpatriotic, it is what the system is supposed to do. Hell, we should have assigned advocates to essentially prosecute the cause the war versus the administration's defense. That's how you test things.)


Despite those notable failures, however, the ideal of the government being unable to do anything without vigorous inquiry and critique is a good one.

[alc]

1. there was bipartisan agreement to go into Iraq

So members of both parties had incentive to "make it work".

Republican opposition to the ACA was almost as strong before it was passed as it is now. It's crazy to think that the republicans would or should have been helping to make it work for the last few years. There are good reasons for wanting bipartisan support for "big" legislation, especially when you can expect issues getting it implemented.

[leftstreet]

2. That's a good point

Instead, since the Republican position was the elimination of the ACA, improving it was never on the table. There was no dialogue with Congress, and no possibility of good changes in subsequent legislation. Republicans wanted the ACA to fail, so any change that could have passed would have been a malignant change.

And very curious, given the ACA was originally a GOP idea