j.r. leonard

More fundamentally, if the Ds are the party of "redistribution" or "communal action," I don't understand how you say to ppl "your taxes are going to go up to help others" without a moral valence. HC, which can be an "almost everyone wins" scenario is weirdly a exception.

I think his interpretation of raising taxes to help others is what he calls “moralizing”

Except that’s not what happened. The ACA just shifted costs from one group of middle class people to another, while maintaining the cartels that make the most from our healthcare system. If that’s your litmus test for a moral stance, then your ethics needs work

In what fashion could we possibly have gotten rid of private insurance? I don’t see how it would have been possible unless very different people were in very specific senate seats.

You keep asking me about what “we could have gotten” and that has nothing to do with what I’m talking about

Well you’re the one saying we should have eleminated “cartels.” Do you actually think that was possible in 2009? It was your proposal not mine.

That’s not what I said. I said that it’s absurd to make support for the ACA the litmus test for who’s moral or immoral. You’re free to like it. You’re free to think it was necessary and the only thing possible, but that doesn’t make you a better person to people who don’t like it

Is there a moral defense of not passing it, where it’s considered morally preferable for millions of people to continue without having insurance?