The Affordable Care Act will help millions but it is not enough. If OFA and other Obamacare supporters want the grassroots to help it get implemented they need to clearly indicate that it is not the final destination.
Healthcare represents more than 18% of our GNP according to the WHO ($2.700.000.000.000/year), dwarfing everything else. Obamacare will not bring this down. Norway, with a Single Payer system, spends only 9.7% of GNP and 100% of everyone there is covered with significantly better outcomes. As a matter of fact, we are #38 in healthcare according to the WHO. Hopefully the ACA will improve our ranking but even with Obamacare, more than 30 million people will not be covered according to a study by the Health Affairs journal.
And I doubt that the bankruptcies caused by medical bills will be reduced. 62% of all bankruptcies are due to medical bills and 75% of those happen to people who HAVE insurance.
I was not happy at all when Obama put Single Payer off the table before the negotiations with the GOP (and Blue Dogs) got started in 2009. He had supported Single Payer before 2008 but his bargaining chip for the ACA was the Public Option.
The ACA was the best Obama could get in the ridiculously polarized and dysfunctional DC given Republican shenanigans and blue dog timidity. But it is not what is best for the country.
Obama has his hands full implementing the ACA in red states and elsewhere. The fight for Medicare for all continues now state by state. Vermont leads the way with their Single Payer system based on the Taiwanese model but Single Payer advocates are not giving up in many other states including California where the movement is regrouping after the fiasco in Sacramento last year.
If we are going to reach the final destination people really want, we need to embrace healthcare as a human right. Once we do and reject the idea of healthcare as a privilege, nothing can stop us.
So yes, let's support Obamacare implementation but let's keep our eyes on the prize.
But if you want to expand Obamacare, as a majority of liberals, progressives and Democrats do according to Pew and Kaiser follow below the orange croissant.