[monocasa]

The Republicans literally turn their backs on Republican policy positions once the Democrats are for it. The ACA started life in 1994 as Newt Gingrich and the Heritage Foundation's HEART Act, including the individual mandate. It then became the crown jewel of Mitt Romney's healthcare reform in MA, with it planned for being pushed as a federal rollout before Obama beat him to the punch and took the wind out of his sails wrt potential election promises.

I personally think the ACA is an awful bill, but I'm pretty alone among Democrats with that opinion.

[jfengel]

You're far from alone. It's widely thought of as a bad compromise, but the only one that could navigate the tortuous straits of needing to get every single Democratic Senator on board -- and skip out on the reconciliation process because one Senator died.

A ton of Democrats would much rather have seen a very different bill, at least a Medicare-for-all plan, but that was simply not on the table. Others would have preferred a bill with a much freer market, but that wasn't possible either unless they got cross-aisle support, which failed to materialize. Nobody thinks of it as their ideal bill.

Most see it as a marginal improvement over the previous law, because it allows more people to have health insurance. That made it a "big [effing] deal" despite nearly universal criticism.