01-14-2017, 09:19 AM
There are two ways that progressives can proceed going forward:
The first one involves abandoning federal remedies altogether and concentrating on what can be done on the state level - unless of course the final ACA repeal bill includes a ban on any state versions of the ACA or anything substantially similar. Then any state solutions will have to be designed differently, most likely with emphasis on charity-care reimbursements to hospitals and other health care facilities; i.e., community health centers, particularly in states that have legalized recreational marijuana use. Private charitable organizations, most notably the Catholic Church, can also be called upon to help in the effort - and Pope Francis would undoubtably be interested.
The second approach involves doing nothing so that progressives have it as an issue to use against the conservatives in 2018 and especially 2020. If enough people die due to the ACA's repeal - and especially if enough "nice," read, white, non-poor people, die - it will be a powerful issue indeed. But could progressives live with themselves that they were complicit in the death of perhaps hundreds of thousands of people?
But they do not have much time to decide.
The first one involves abandoning federal remedies altogether and concentrating on what can be done on the state level - unless of course the final ACA repeal bill includes a ban on any state versions of the ACA or anything substantially similar. Then any state solutions will have to be designed differently, most likely with emphasis on charity-care reimbursements to hospitals and other health care facilities; i.e., community health centers, particularly in states that have legalized recreational marijuana use. Private charitable organizations, most notably the Catholic Church, can also be called upon to help in the effort - and Pope Francis would undoubtably be interested.
The second approach involves doing nothing so that progressives have it as an issue to use against the conservatives in 2018 and especially 2020. If enough people die due to the ACA's repeal - and especially if enough "nice," read, white, non-poor people, die - it will be a powerful issue indeed. But could progressives live with themselves that they were complicit in the death of perhaps hundreds of thousands of people?
But they do not have much time to decide.
"These, and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation" - Justice David Brewer, Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States, 1892