The u-turn came long before that acronym existed, as I remember it. The Dems had been trying to build consensus for some kind of single payer plan for almost twenty years by that point, and practically the first thing Obama said after being elected was that as a show of good faith he would take single payer was off the table.
Maybe today the ACA is thought of as progressive, especially in the sense that the right wants it to end and the left doesn't; but in its time I think it was rightly understood as the Democrats caving to a massive transfer from the public to the private sector. I recall the private insurers' stock prices all going up 10-20% that week.
Maybe today the ACA is thought of as progressive, especially in the sense that the right wants it to end and the left doesn't; but in its time I think it was rightly understood as the Democrats caving to a massive transfer from the public to the private sector. I recall the private insurers' stock prices all going up 10-20% that week.