Thanks for this post. Fighting for single payer is definitely the next step, and we should start by promoting the public option that was dropped from the ACA.

You did such a great job banging the drum to get people to vote for Obama in both 2008 and 2012 - how about banging the drum a bit more about the mid-terms. A Republican-controlled congress is dangerous to our sexual freedom among many other things. People listen to you, Dan.

Wait, but that graph last night showed us as being only a third of the way there????

@2

A day or two ago, on the SlOG page Twitter Feed, there was an entry about comma usage. The statement was like "Join our prayer circle jerk...or...Join our prayer circle, jerk." Mildly clever, nothing i would twitter about if I had that service, but it did make me think of the enjoyable Oxford Comma hullabaloo that Kiley had been wring about over the past few months. With that said, I somehow instantly read your last bit, CookieMom, as: "People, listen to you Dan." Doesn't make the sense I would prefer, although it positively changes the directive, which is thought provoking enough for me. Thanks.

Nice rant, as usual, Dan. One minor quibble, though: Germany does not have a single-payer system. It's a mix of 'public' and 'private' insurance, much of its cost borne by employer- and self-funded premiums. It is compulsory and universal, however, and there are public funds to cover the unemployed.

@5,

France is also not single-payer.

I wish I had bought stock in the phrase "cook the books" two weeks ago.

Right wing talking heads can't get enough of that phrase this week.

My daughter, who grew up in France, is planning to move from Colorado to Atlanta in the fall. She doesn't pay enough attention to the news because she hadn't heard that Georgia just passed a law allowing concealed guns in bars and restaurants (she works in a restaurant) or that she won't be eligible for Medicaid like she is in CO. When I told her all this last night there was a pause and she said, "It's like they WANT you to die over here."

@6 France has a mixed system like Germany but you are never left completely uncovered when you're between jobs or studying.

I have a buddy who's a nurse and her mom is one too. They said a few unfavorable things about Obamacare. Then I asked, "Is it better than the system we had?" "Yes," my friend answered without reservation. "Can we use it as a stepping stone to get another one?" "Yes" again.

has anyone axed the 30 million who haven't signed up what is their major malfunction?

are they standing on principle?

are they red staters living under a GOP gov'ner?

do they live under a rock?

Right on Dan first this then the public option and finally single payer.

@10, I simply never bothered to do it. It's just one more bill. Whether subsidized or not, one more life complication.

A decent chunk of the 30M probably live in states that refused to expand Medicaid, and even with subsidies, can't afford coverage. Some others look at it as an expense they can't afford, even though they can't NOT afford it (I have a friend who complains at least once a day on Facebook that her premiums would be "unaffordable," but also that medical expenses she's currently paying out of pocket are MORE). Some probably just plum forgot. And some are probably standing on principle. It's not too hard to imagine that less than 10% of the population falls into one of those groups.

@12: have you estimated your tax penalty?

Max @10, I'm not signed up, because I cannot afford it even after subsidy.

blip @13, if I were signed up, I would spend a couple hundred a month and that $5000 ER bill would not be covered.

I sure hope the ACA is a stepping stone to real healthcare reform. But I expect that the ACA will forestall a better system being instituted. That is what it was designed to do, back when it was a Republican idea.

The ACA is a sop to the insurance industry, and all I get is unaffordable insurance--not access to healthcare.

A few notes on the figures being bandied about here:

That 7 million is mostly (about 60-70%) people who already had insurance, had it cancelled and had to enroll through the exchanges. The actual number of new enrollees is closer to two million based on at least two surveys. That's the number of sign-ups not the actual number of enrollees, which will be smaller.

Second, the reduction in uninsured, when you include everything, is probably between 6 million (pessimistically) 10 million (optimistically), not 30 million. The 30 million number you are citing is the CBO's original estimate when PPACA passed. So we're looking at a third of what was projected.

Make of that what you will.

One thing I am taking away from this post: Black people and latinos: I know it is a mid-term vote but get out and VOTE in this election! It is IMPORTANT we all get counted.

Um - re "(Medicare expansion, kids who can stay on their parents health care plans until they're 26)"

I assume you meant MediCaid expansion? as far as I know, Medicare didn't expand.