How can you tell if armor is any good? You field test it. You shoot stuff at it. You shoot a lot of stuff at it.
Think Progress created a one-page timeline of GOP attacks on the Affordable Care Act. After looking at the extraordinary degree the GOP went to undermine and/or kill the ACA, I came away with a feeling that this thing must be pretty good—look at how it survived all these attacks.
What’s a bit sad about the timeline is knowing that the GOP has spent most of its time the last several years either trying to prevent people like me from having access to affordable health care or ensuring that women have little or no control over their bodies—or both. Seriously, GOP, my god, don’t you have anything else to do?!
Regardless of all the attempts, the ACA survived. It not only survived, but I’m now a proud possessor of a genuine healthcare policy, provided via the Healthcare Marketplace, that allows me to see the doctors I want to see. I had originally decided to go with an Anthem Blue Shield plan, but the company is having problems with its own systems and the provider network wasn’t that great. Instead, I went with Coventry and I can see the doctors I want to see and it covers all the nearby hospitals and urgent care centers. The deductible and co-pays aren’t too bad, either.
All the GOP warnings about the many and myriad failures of the Affordable Care Act—of Obamacare—have proven to be false. False. The hysteria has been proven to be nonsensical, the assertions are unfounded, even the court challenges have, for the most part, been unsuccessful. The only court case of importance that still exists (Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores) should give even the GOP cause for concern because if the Supreme Court determines corporations can have religious freedom as well as freedom of speech, we’re all in a world of hurt. And that includes the corporations because a religious ruling undermines the economic separation between corporate owners and corporate actions (which is why the Chamber of Commerce is rooting for the government’s side in this one).
The real problem, though, isn’t with the GOP. No, the real problem is with the Democrats. And people like me.
See, once I stopped having problems with the Marketplace and was able to get a healthcare policy, I never said another word about the ACA. I bitched about the system, but when it came through in the end, not a peep.
That’s a heck of a way to thank a system that ensures I have healthcare coverage for the first time in five years.
And Democrats, oh my. When did aliens come from another planet and rip the backbone out of every Democratic candidate for office in the land? Instead of holding up the ACA with pride—because they, more or less, single-handedly solved one of this country’s biggest problems—they either pretend the ACA doesn’t exist, or they actually repudiate it.
Seriously, Democrats create a system that, over time, will ensure the majority of people have adequate healthcare coverage in the only industrialized nation that didn’t ensure this previously, and they run for rocks when it’s mentioned.
Well here’s a clue, gutless ones: I won’t vote for a Democrat that doesn’t go, “Damn straight, I’m proud of the ACA!”
We need to stop letting the GOP control the discussion about the Affordable Care Act. We need to stop pandering to the ignorant and the paranoid and the libertarians who, frankly, can only be libertarian because our government is so damn strong.
The Affordable Care Act is a good thing. End of Story.