Obamacare was a major part of Obamas platform before he got elected. In fact, what was ultimately enacted fell far short of what Obama had envisioned. Both Obama and Congress were lawfully elected to meet the needs of their constituents.
The way our society operates is that if you want to take away the health benefits provided by Obamacare, you can elect people who run on that premise
It was part of his platform but there was great backlash against it, or against how the Dems were trying to do it, to the point of Democrats losing Ted Kennedy's Senate seat.
So then the Congress resorted to a parliamentary gimmick because they knew they didn't have the votes to get it done if a vote were held in the expected way.
That was not a cool way to enact such a huge change. Did not bode well for the emotional state of the nation. Contributed to the overall PTSD we are now experiencing. Which is not good for health or economy.
Endless filibuster is a parliamentary gimmick to prevent bills from coming for a vote. There were more than enough votes to pass Obamacare, the gimmick was to overcome the Republican filibuster gimmick
Filibuster is fair. If Democrats can't convince 60 senators to vote for the deal, then they haven't made their case.
Didn't make the case to the legislators. Didn't make their case to the people the legislators represent.
And if they can't make the case on something that big, they should take that as a clue.
Electing Scott Brown in Massachusetts should have been a HUGE clue. Obama at one point said it was. Said he got it. He used to say that a lot, "I get it", and then always turned around and showed he didn't get it.
So, instead of really getting it, and really making the case, they went to gimmicks we don't learn about in civics class.
Legal and all that, but not good form, not with something so big that so many people in America were recoiling from.
And Democrats paid the price in 2010.
Time will tell whether they keep paying in 2012.
I believe that Republicans could go too far, and in some ways have already gone too far, and so maybe that will buffer the price that Democrats will have to pay.
But that won't make what the Democrats did to slide Obamacare in through the back door any more justifiable.