Don't make me laugh. The ACA passed without any negotiation with nor input from the Republicans. That's why they all voted against it. There just wasn't enough of them to stop it. They got railroaded.
I remember Obama's words well... "Elections have consequences." And... "Republicans can come along for the ride. They just have to sit in the back seat." Well, welcome to the back seat!
Originally Posted by gfejunkie
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You have a short memory. You mean Romneycare? The ACA has the DNA of the republican party all over it. As in most areas of life, the real story has a lot more nuance. An excerpt from an exceptional piece of reporting by the Atlantic below. The fact that republicans refused to vote for it indicative of something, just not the thing you think.
"The bill began in earnest in the senate with Max Baucus who signaled his desire to find a bipartisan compromise, working closely with an informal group of three democrats and three republicans.They covered the parties’ ideological bases; the other GOPers were conservative Mike Enzi of Wyoming and moderate Olympia Snowe of Maine, and the Democrats were liberal Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico and moderate Kent Conrad of North Dakota.
Baucus very deliberately started the talks with a template that was the core of the 1993-4 Republican plan, built around an individual mandate and exchanges with private insurers—much to the chagrin of many Democrats and liberals who wanted, if not a single-payer system, at least one with a public insurance option. Through the summer, the Gang of Six engaged in detailed discussions and negotiations to turn a template into a plan. But as the summer wore along, it became clear that something had changed; both Grassley and Enzi began to signal that participation in the talks—and their demands for changes in the evolving plan—would not translate into a bipartisan agreement.
What became clear before September, when the talks fell apart, is that Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell had warned both Grassley and Enzi that their futures in the Senate would be much dimmer if they moved toward a deal with the Democrats that would produce legislation to be signed by Barack Obama. They both listened to their leader. An early embrace by both of the framework turned to shrill anti-reform rhetoric by Grassley—talking, for example, about death panels that would kill grandma—and statements by Enzi that he was not going to sign on to a deal. The talks, nonetheless, continued into September, and the emerging plan was at least accepted in its first major test by the third Republican Gang member, Olympia Snowe (even if she later joined every one of her colleagues to vote against the plan on the floor of the Senate.)"
full link in case you are actually interested
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/...-birth/397742/
