On Friday, Daily Kos founder and publisher Markos Moulitsas contended that conservatives would benefit if they stopped opposing the Affordable Care Act, since their efforts actually increase the chance that one day, America will have what they would abhor: a single-payer system. He added that "luckily," righties won't take his advice and will keep trying to destabilize the ACA.
Moulitsas asserted the impending victory of single-payer as scheduled for arrival in Vermont in 2017: "This is the future of America, and Vermont is leading the way."
From Kos's post (emphasis added):
Had Republicans embraced their Heritage-devised plan, worked with Democrats to best shape it in their mold, then accepted this market-based approach in bipartisan fashion, Obamacare's [approval rating] would look much better. And if overwhelming majorities approved of the plan, any hope of future progress on the issue would be dead in the water.
Republicans might not have their ideal (i.e. screw the uninsured), but their CEO buddies would still be living large and they'd still be able to boast of a market-based solution in line with their political ideology.
But with approval of the law still in iffy territory, liberals have room to agitate for further improvements without having to tackle an entrenched and deeply popular law. And with Republicans refusing to allow even minor technical fixes to the law to improve its efficacy, [t]heir continued undermining of the law makes it just as easy in the longer term for liberals to push for bigger and broader chances.
If Republicans wanted to kill any chance of single payer ever happening, the best way to do that would be to ensure that Obamacare was firmly entrenched. Luckily, they have no interest in ever allowing that.
