this post was submitted on 30 Apr 2026
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Tell me you remember literally nothing about the passage of the ACA without telling me you remember literally nothing about the passage of the ACA.
If you think "Obama and the Dems back then" could've passed universal healthcare, can you pass the icepick so I can understand better? Technically, numerically, if "the Dems" assumed a hivemind, they could've passed universal healthcare. They had a sizable majority in the House, a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, and Obama in the executive. Nobody's denying that.
But "the Dems" were never a monolith, and the ACA was already barely passed and wasn't even popular among the general public. Even if we (wrongly) assume the "does not address real problems" camp of the public opposition were entirely leftists who thought it didn't go far enough, "we could've had universal healthcare" is a ridiculous fever dream that only exists by taking a couple raw numbers wildly out of context.
The ACA was a victory because public support was just barely there, reflected in Democrats scraping together enough of a caucus to get it through. The fact this was so controversial is a joke, but it nevertheless represented a notable victory for Obama et al. because the country they were governing is so backwards.
Lieberman was the sole holdout preventing the inclusion of a public option. I vividly remember how the whip was unwilling to actually whip that vote out. Use Ted Kennedy’s file cabinet, etc.