>>Bill, maybe you can assist me: here's the problematic quotation:
>>
>>“If you have a law that makes explicit that healthy people pay in and sick people get money, it wouldn’t have passed,” he said in one video. “Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage, and basically call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really critical to getting the thing to pass.”
>>
>>Healthy people pay in and sick people get money... isn't that just a description of the way insurance works? People whose house did not burn down put in money and the person whose house did burn down, gets the money.
>>
>
>Of course that's what insurance is, but insurance is voluntary and young people weren't getting health insurance for obvious reasons- they don't get sick!
>In this case you are forcing healthy people to knowingly subsidize the health care of sick people.
>The only way that could have worked was to put the whole thing under Medicare, which does just that.
>Obama and company decided that the cries of "socialism" would kill that, so they opted for the present hodge-podge.
>
>
>>>but basically that was really critical to getting the thing to pass
>
>That clause sums up the problem with ACA.
>Getting it passed became more important than:
>A. Writing a law that was clearly understood by the majority of the people
>B. Making sure that it had the support of the majority of the people.
>C. Writing a law that actually solved the problem at hand.
>
>I've said several times that if this act actually stays on the books and really works it will be more miraculous than Obama's nomination and election was.
>Obama pulled off the nomination and was elected twice so we shouldn't underestimate his miracle-working ability, but I suspect that this one is out of his reach.
>Obama and company get the full share of blame, but the opposition's failure was in landing on things like "Death panels" instead of dealing with real issues like "you can keep your plan" or the lack of support for the plan among likely participants in many states.
>
>That's the bad news.
>
>The good news - no countries were invaded and no one was slaughtered.

Other than Americans....