Ok I think you need to look up the term "right" and think about this some more.

I ACTUALLY believe health care is a human right. That is why I believe it should be funded in a fully public manner by taxes, delivered by a public intermediary who has no profit motive-with nothing to gain by standing between you and the doctors and hospitals who treat you and the drug co.s who make your medicine. And that is why I also believe you should not be compelled to engage a private enterprise who wants to take as much of your money as it can extract and give you as little as possible in return for it, so it can bank the difference as profit. The first arrangement is the proper realization of a human right. The second arrangement is a form of servitude.

then I'd be inclined to agree with you. However, ACA does much more than that. It's not perfect and it's not close to single payer but it does a lot to make things better than what they were like. The insurance companies are simply not going to be allowed to run amok like they once were and the government is now going to help people get insurance. How is this bad?

...as a condition for you or I receiving care when we're sick or injured. That's not only a fallacy, it's a horrendous one. The ACA is NOT designed to solve our health care access and expense problems-- there were much easier and more expeditious solutions to those problems-- it's designed to maintain the profits of commercial insurance companies, ghouls who profit from sickness, injury, and suffering.

Piss on the insurance companies and the greedy profiteers who run them!

The only reason the mandate WON'T be the only thing to change is that everyone involved KNOWS this, so without the mandate to conserve insurance company profits, the rest of the ACA will likely be gutted-- because in the end, it isn't about solving anything except America's phony corporate wealth care crisis.

but it certainly won't be anywhere near as obscene and/or exploitative as it was before ACA with the government now taking a more active role. They have to insure now that 80% of the premiums go to MEDICAL CARE. Before they could use whatever they want for whatever they want. Also, nobody is even talking about them possibly gutting everything BUT the mandate. That's just absurd IMHO. If the mandate falls, it may mean that everything else does too but the mandate isn't going to be preserved while everything else is gutted. There is absolutely no rationale for that in the law whatsoever. There's no way that that's going to happen.

I certainly never meant to suggest that the mandate will be the only thing NOT struck down, although that would be a kick in the pants for republicans, wouldn't it?

No, I mean that even the ACA's most ardent supporters won't talk about keeping the good parts of the bill-- medical loss ratios, no pre-existing conditions, prolonging childrens' access to parents' health insurance, etc-- without the mandate. Why do liberals even care about whether health insurance companies make a profit? Personally, I'd prefer to see that entire industry destroyed.

and think it's ridiculous that we're one of a dwindling number of civilized countries without it but shifting from a completely private system to public system overnight is probably not feasible and likely to cause a lot of disruption for a lot of people in the process. Plus, absent some major catastrophe and/or overwhelming demand, most people do not usually accept radical changes easily. It will probably have to end up being gradually implemented state-by-state (using ACA's waivers) before national implementation. However, while we're waiting for some segments of society to grow up, at least ACA will help make things better for more people. As far as the mandate is concerned, my understanding is that, however distateful it might be, a mandate is necessary in order for the other elements of the law to work how they should. Frankly, I don't see what the big deal about the mandate is anyway since most people already have some private health insurance that they are already paying for and would basically be unaffected by it. Frankly, I grew up with the notion that having some form of health insurance was the responsible thing to do.

Medicare. Insurance without enslavement. Times have changed. Health care and its funding have evolved. The one way to solve this mess is to Expand Medicare to all and eliminate every other program. Let the Health Insurance Companies go the way of the Horse and Buggy. Although with the Gas price here today I might go back to a Horse and Buggy.

The principle is MUCH more important to me than the details. We can change the ACA later, if need be. But we must establish health care as a right before any additional progress can be made.

The rest of the world laughs at what we constructed. It isn't universal, and doesn't guarantee a right to health CARE. The US in no way "joined the club". It's the same old market driven system in which people go bankrupt paying for health CARE while being beholden to insurance companies.

Many do believe it is a basic human right. Unfortunately those folks were kept "out of the room" during the negotiations for ACA. Purchasing health INSURANCE was established as an obligation. Actually getting health CARE was explicitly recognized to NOT be an obligation of the government.

What the hell do you base that on? The rest of the world can see that we've made an improvement from what we had.

I don't think the purist's lament extends past our borders.

...that they and their British friends think we're all incredibly short-sighted for not having some equivalent of the NHS. My daughter still can't get used to the notion of going to the doctor when you NEED to, rather than just when you can AFFORD to.

What do I base it upon? How about conversations with literally a dozen or more foreign nationals that find the "worlds most powerful country" a friggin' laughing stock because we pay 5 time the amount for LESS health CARE.

What do you base your claim upon?

As usual, the perfect is the enemy of the good.

You realize that this bill was based HEAVILY upon the 1995 GOP plan (Obama claimed so himself) that was DESIGNED to be the "enemy" of single payer.

That's good.

not the enshrining of a for-profit criminal industry in this mandate.

The mandate itself doesn't bother me at all. The product being mandated in health care drag does.

I do not believe in being forced to pay money to people who profit by how much care they can not approve.