For everyone who has a problem with ACA--

[eridani]

--please think back to the 2009 and 2010 debates and tell me how we ever get single payer at the national level with all the jackasses that voters in red states keep electing, Let's hear a plan. (Yes, I know that movements like Moral Mondays are making some headway, but it's going to take awhile.)

No, didn't think so. But that doesn't mean giving up. ACA provides a way to get single payer at the state level starting in 2017. Instead of griping about ACA, get active in your state.

All but seven states have single payer activist groups.
http://www.pnhp.org/stateactions

[Loudly]

1. Candidates running on Medicare for All win. That's how.

Candidates who squirm and equivocate and clear their throats when asked about ACA lose.

That simple.

[pnwmom]

10. Not in red states they don't. I know people in Texas who don't even like Medicare.

Some doctors are even beginning to reject it.

[NYC_SKP]

2. K/R. (nt)

[calimary]

3. Kicking.

Stand up for it and be proud, dammit! And go on OFFENSE. And make NO apologies. Concede NOTHING.

[joshcryer]

4. Vermont will be first, but I bet Colorado follows shortly thereafter.

It's going to be a trickle like gay marriage but it will happen. And all because we got the ACA passed rather than fretting that it was imperfect. That was the whole goal all along.

[Bluenorthwest]

12. Actually it took a great deal of political pressure to add to ACA the provisions to allow States

to make better plans. That did not fall from the sky, it was the result of hard played politics by good Democrats and Bernie which was at the time considered harsh criticism by some of DU who claimed this was 'letting the perfect be the enemy of the good'.
Fortunately, the efforts to include then expand these provisions bore fruit because the original version forbade states from making their own plans.

[adirondacker]

13. +1000. This is what actually gave me hope. Thanks for posting this non trivial matter. nt

[joshcryer]

15. Wyden's amendment was quite trivial.

I don't think you should buy into this idea that it was "fought for."

[joshcryer]

14. Link? That is silly. The US runs by administrative law.

I can easily rebuff this nonsense but I am too tired right now. If HHS didn't have waiver ability, they'd have been neutered. Wyden's exception was quite literally opening the door for privatized health care. In fact, though it is absurdly unlikely, there is even the possibility that a state with a very efficient private health care exchange can become mandated, etc.

The idea that the ACA wouldn't have a waiver is so absurd as to laugh about it on its face. It helps that Wyden was the one to put it in there, but it had to be put in there, lest the HHS have no real power. This entire country is run administratively. Waivers (and the ability to create "new rules&quot are quite literally how US administrations run.

[ErikJ]

6. The GOP will repeal ACA anyway

Theyre predicted to get the Sen in 2014 and if they win pres. in 2016 TOO, say good bye to ACA.

[pnwmom]

9. If worse comes to worse, we'll filibuster it. n/t

[hopemountain]

7. thank you for the link! nt

[pnwmom]

8. I agree. Go Vermont! n/t

[ProSense]

11. Shumlin: 'Don't Quit' On Single Payer Before Work Begins

Shumlin: 'Don't Quit' On Single Payer Before Work Begins
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024742532

[Chathamization]

16. If it was possible at the national level, it should be downright easy at the local level.

Though I doubt it was possible at the national level in '09-10, I think it's possible at the local level. Though it is telling that you'll get hundreds of posts arguing whether or not it was possible in the past, and only a handful trying to get it implemented now.