One does not have to be a communist to believe that, because the free market can create inequalities, that there are some aspects of social life, which must be protected from the consequences of these inequalities. Access to healthcare should not remain an earned privilege; it should be part of a safety net, which include other protections (like free k-12 education, care for the elderly etc).
As an advocate of single payer health care I was disappointed when it was not even considered by congress. Obamacare was a compromise, which fearfully tiptoed around insurance companies and their congressman-purchasing profits.
On the other hand, politics is the art of the possible; and one should never make the best the enemy of the good.
The fact is that Obamacare makes healthcare affordable to 30 million uninsured Americans and give security to tens of millions more. It gets rid of the insurance companies ability to deny coverage (or jack premiums up) based on pre-existing conditions, lifetime caps on healthcare services, and most generally it increases the robustness of a safety net very much in need of mending.
It is revolting that conservatives are trying to repeal Obamacare, when just a few years ago it was their more market friendly alternative to more socialized reforms.
Consider that Obamacare is a federal facsimile of Romneycare, who structured his plan (complete with individual mandate) based on prescriptions made by both the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise institute. (This makes one wonder: If in 2008, Romney had be become president, would we be having this fight?) When Hilarycare was being debated, it was something very much like Obamacare that republican senators introduced as the alternative. In fact Obamacare is the most “market friendly” universal healthcare system on the planet (Switzerland is the only other country with no public option, but their “universal” is more universal than ours).
One begins to suspect a bait and switch tactic: When conservatives argue against healthcare reform they dangle alternatives in front of America’s nose only for them to vanish once the reform is killed. Their success is a testament to American amnesia. Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton all tried and came up against pretty much the same powerful forces.
It is even more revolting that the Supreme Court, whose conservative judges were all appointed before Obama became president, and when Obamacare was the darling of many conservative think tanks is now poised to strike down the law voting not on ideological lines, but on partisan lines. So much for judicial independence. Five robed men have the power to deprive millions of people of health insurance and security, and undo a reform of health care that passed with a filibuster-proof majority in congress…all based on the notion that they are protecting freedom. And conservatives are the ones complaining about judicial activism!
The air in this country is thick with “freedom” …so much you can choke on it