One of my Trump loving Facebook friends sometime after the election posted a standard anti-Obamacare screed followed by a fairly thoughtful and intelligent description of what an ideal health care system should look like. It wasn't A+ health care wonk material, but it was decent enough. The thing is, though, what he described almost down to the level of comma placement in the legislation was... Obamacare.
I'm not one to argue politics on the Facebook, except for parking and curb cut policies, but this intrigued me so I pointed out that what he had described was almost precisely (and it really was, not just sorta like it) Obamacare, without the mandate. I'm not sure if he realized this or not, and I didn't want to be arguing on the facebook so I didn't continue the conversation, but the mandate was enough for him to hang his creepingsocialismblahblahblah rant on and declare Obamacare evil. And, ok, fine, I think the mandate is actually pretty stupid. The penalty is enough to piss people off, but not really enough to make them buy shitty unaffordable insurance if they aren't getting generous enough subsidies. In other words, it's probably not unreasonable to just take the penalty and be pissed off about it than to buy shit insurance you can't afford. So it isn't really much of a stick. Carrots - making the subsidies more generous - would've been better. Also, too, just sign people up and send them damn bill if you really want to force them to have insurance. Force, don't nudge.
I doubt all conservatives agree with his support of Obamacare whether he knew it or not, but I don't actually have any clue what they do want, other than the most uncharitable possibilities I can imagine. I don't mean rich assholes or the sociopaths Congress, I mean the great mass of deplorables who think Obamacare is full communism and is sapping their precious bodily fluids. Practically everyone has to deal with this health insurance bullshit.
