Last month we passed a big milestone: the fifth anniversary of the ACA (Affordable Care Act). Barack Obama used 22 pens on March 23, 2010 to sign the most important piece of social legislation so far in this young century. If you have about seven minutes, you can hear Joe Biden’s introduction of the President at the signing. Biden’s speech is pretty laudatory and positive but he does not overstate the significance of the President’s accomplishments where others have failed and the historic nature of the legislation. His remarks have become famous because at the end of his speech he leaned into the President’s ear and said, “Mr. President, this is a big [expletive] deal…”
The New York Times article the next day put the event and the challenge ahead in perspective because it also presented the mindset of the Republican leadership on that day that persists to this day.
“This is a somber day for the American people,” said Representative John A. Boehner, the House Republican leader. “By signing this bill, President Obama is abandoning our founding principle that government governs best when it governs closest to the people.”
A few sentences later we get the Republicans’ focused objective that persists to this day: “Repeal and replace.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/health/policy/24health.html
Five years ago it would have been almost impossible to imagine the persistent resistance that the ACA would experience despite a reelection of the President and the victory over the challenge heard in the Supreme Court two years later. This week there have been reviews of the many positive accomplishments of the last five years despite the fact that many states continue to resist the expansion Medicaid. Amid the high points of the accomplishments there are memories of the disastrous website performance during the rollout of the exchanges. Even as we look at the success, King v. Burwell has been heard in Supreme Court and it is impossible to know which way one or two of the conservative justices will come down in that decision or what the end result of a ruling for King would mean to all that has been accomplished.
Yes Joe, it was a big deal and it remains a big, important deal.
