I am so sick of the GOP and their right wing talking heads blathering on about the  “Ultra Commie Pinko OBAMA CARE!” The Right wingers calling this bill an example of  President Obama’s unwillingness to compromise is the biggest pile of Political BS I have ever heard. The fact of the matter is that nearly all of the key policy ideas that have dominated conservative health-care policy thinking from as far back as 1970 are included in the Affordable Care Act.

Starting with the individual mandate a policy that dates back to the NIXON administration, the Affordable Care Act is chocked full of Conservative ideas and policies. The Mandate was and is a key policy to making both the Dole plan in 1993 and Romney’s Mass Plan in 2006 plausible. Without the Individual Mandate private insurance carriers cannot hope to remain profitable thus if we want to take the free market path it is an absolute necessity!  Other policies such as health insurance exchanges, price transparency in the provider and insurance markets, limiting the tax preference for employer-sponsored health care, and transitioning the system in general — and Medicare in particular — away from fee-for-service payments are all part of both the 1993 GOP plan and Romney Care! This plan is so much closer to the Dole counter than the Clinton plan it is ridiculous! Hell even the primary author of the Affordable Care Act and Romney Care were the same Guy!

The Right screams about President Obama being a bully yet all of the evidence shows that if even a handful of Republicans had been willing to cut a deal on the Affordable Care Act, the Obama administration would have given them the moon in return. The Dems were ready and willing to go much further on Tort reform, on medical malpractice reform and many Dems had a real desire to go much further on limiting the tax preference for employer-sponsored health care. However they needed political cover from Republicans to get it past their base. Had anyone from the GOP stepped up and broke from the lockstep obstructionism, all of those policies would have been part of the package but the Dems could not give that up unless it was seen as a compromise!

The GOP and their mouth pieces Love to site the Fact that No Republicans Voted for the Affordable Health Care Act as ipso facto proof that this bill is a “Liberal, Socialist Plot!” That has got to be one of the most outrageous Logical fallacies I have ever heard y, yet they scream it from the roof tops continuously! The FACT of the matter is that this plan is PURE compromise from the President! Most of us from the Left that are actually paying attention see it as capitulation in the highest order from the Obama Administration! They never even tried to fight for REAL PROGRESSIVE ideas on the subject! Even the Public option was cut out of the plan before it was ever even offered up for discussion! If you think back President Obama took a severe beating from  his base on how much they gave away to the Right with this bill!

So please if you are going to accuse the President of being a Bully you have to come up with something better than the Affordable Health Care Act!