I'm posting today about the issues with the ACA....
It is remarkable to read history and see the pattern of change in this country: time and again, the initial nay-sayers and attackers, followed by ultimate victory. Fulton's Folly, Seward's Folly, Rockefeller Center ("They'll never fill it"), Social Security, etc.
And here we go again. The media has to fill a 24-hour news cycle, and also has to grab the attention of readers with short attention spans, and so headlines including the word "Disaster" are much easier to write than anything considered. In addition, there is the tradition of going after a President in his second term, and further, the New York Times' reaction to their "soft on Obama" accusations. Meanwhile, the public has no perspective, our educational system doesn't teach us the real value of the past, which is that most things have already happened and we can avoid a lot of mistakes if we learn how things actually rockily progressed. There are an amazing number of phrases like "It almost didn't happen." Americans "want it now!" and after the first few weeks, of course the ACA was a fiasco, even though the great majority agreed that healthcare reform was necessary -- except it's increasingly clear that it isn't a fiasco. In fact, despite the terrible rollout, it's been rather a test of things to see it starting to succeed. The demand for it has been that great, and just maybe, just maybe -- it's going to succeed because it was the right thing to do, after all?
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