Why didn't the Democrats pass Universal Health Care in 2009?

[Dems to Win]

If it's possible to build a universal health care system based on private for-profit insurance plus Medicare and Medicaid, why didn't they do it in 2009?

Obamacare is fully implemented, and we now have 26 million people without any insurance, and 29 million underinsured, with ridiculous $5000 deductible employer-provided policies for people making 10 bucks an hour (looking at you, WalMart).

Why isn't the ACA better?

A big part of the reason is that former Democratic Senator Max Baucus was owned by the insurance industry. The insurance companies had to approve every bit of the bill before he would let it go through, to make sure it didn't threaten their profits. Other Senators and Representatives watched out for the interests of other corporate players.

Now, the Democratic leadership, including Hillary and the DNC and all the Washington Democrats, want the voters to elect lots of Democrats so they can improve the ACA, with the promise of universal health care next time.

But these Democratic leaders are filling their campaign coffers with money from insurance companies, drug companies, hospital companies, etc. Why should anyone believe the Democrats will be able to do a better job the second time around, when they are still being funded by the same corporate interests that prevented Universal Health Care in 2009?

[EdwardBernays]

1. Don't forget

That the owner of one of DC biggest lobbying firms was Obama’s "Personal Advisor"'

[tularetom]

2. The real question is in your last paragraph

We know why they didn't do in 2009, can we trust them to do it in 2017 when so many of them (including one of our presidential candidates) are in the pocket of the drug companies and the insurance industry?

Personally I'm not optimistic.

[Warren DeMontague]

3. That entire charade was simply painful. We had a clear majority. We had a mandate. We should have

gotten at least the public option we were repeatedly promised.

Instead there was a torturous and unnecessary YEAR of town hall "wot'llwedo?" "wot'llwedo?" Let's not be hasty, no..

The town halls having zero function except to provide a free platform for the nascent teabaggers to be featured yelling incoherently on cable news.

Why we wasted an entire year on that, is beyond me.




Well, actually it really isn't, but I wish it was.

[bornskeptic]

4. Because they didn't dare to spend enough to get it done.

The economy was in recession and the deficit was already over $1 trillion. The ACA was passed with a projected cost of under $1 trillion over 10 years, while any true universal healthcare system the US would cost well over a trillion annually. Under the economic conditions aat the time there was no way that Congress was going to authorize the combination of tax and deficit increases that that kind of spending would require. Given the financial constraints they felt they were under, it's hard to imagine how they could have done any better.

[Skinner]

7. The biggest problem with ACA is that the Supreme Court gutted the Medicaid expansion.

If the Supreme Court had left it intact there would be millions more people with health care.

I know that many people here don't want to hear this, but yes, the best hope to improve health care is to elect more Democrats. To the presidency, to congress, and at the state level.

Unless someone here can explain how electing fewer Democrats would lead to better health care.