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This article does a good job of explaining the conservative nature of Obamacare by mentioning how the plan brings forth "principles originally embraced by Republicans" and showing that "because it is not a government takeover of health care," it has few large Democrat supporters. This sentence sums it up well and demonstrates the ridiculousness of the situation: "Mr. Obama's plan, which should be a darling of the right for these principles, was abandoned not for its content, but rather for politics." I am also wondering where that leaves the Republicans, since if Romney is anti-"Romneycare across state lines," what would his health care plan be? Furthermore, instead of attacking Obamacare, he could be giving himself the credit for the basic idea which would certainly help his campaign, gain wider-spread support, and make him appear more the right-leaning centrist.

As someone who doesn't understand the details of Obamacare, this was really compelling. I remember someone in the chat room on debate night mentioning that the Mass. plan is basically identical to Obama's, like you said, Eli, so it's more confusing to me that Romney keeps objecting to it as a whole than that he agrees to it in part. Also, Eli, just as there is not really clear Republican alternative to Obamacare, I wonder what the Democrats who are "lukewarm" about it would rather see? I agree with what you're saying in your last sentence, Mabel. It seems like he's already headed in that direction, but should probably hurry it up if he wants it to pay off with the moderate electorate. Even if he can't claim Obama's plan, he could definitely latch onto "personal responsibility" and other traditionally conservative values behind it as more reflective of his own platform.

I totally agree with what you are saying. I think that a lot of people are so fixed to their status quo that they can't see the simple fact that with Romney as president a lot of people in America will be without health care. I also think that people forget that the government is for the benefit of the people and with Romney as president the government will not be benefitting many people at all. If Romney believes in so little government why would he even run for president, he should have stayed in the private sector.

I tend to agree with you that being super partisan hasn't really worked for him so far, and that being a little nicer could be a good tactic. I like the point you make about Obamacare Just because he doesn't like it, doesn't mean that his policy needs to be entirely distinct from it in every way. This article reminds me of a conversation we had in our class about the "race to the center" that usually surrounds campaigning: since Obama and Romney have the far left and far right on their sides, the battle should be for the centrist voters. Maybe it's because of the general radicalization of his party (tea-party, etc.), but it seems to me that Romney hasn't been playing this game as much as he should. He can, and I would say should, be opposed to Obama in clear and distinct ways if he hopes to win, but I agree with you that it would be foolish to oppose him unconditionally. This attitude puts him in the position of bad guy.

I don't think Romney has said what he wants to keep or change at all. The idea that he could only keep the part about preexisting conditions is actually impossible when you take a look at the law. Without a lot of the portions of the act, the preexisting conditions pare doesn't work. By making all Americans essentially purchase healthcare, the healthcare companies can provide for people with preexisting conditions. Without that part of the law, it wouldn't really work for the insurance companies to profitably have people with preexisting conditions covered. I look at this as more rhetoric without substance. Check the article I posted about Obamacare and conservative ideals. I think it paints a nice picture of why Romney is screwed when it comes to talking Obamacare.

I was pretty surprised to see this author, writing an op-ed for a liberal paper, tear apart Obama's Medicare plan like this. The way he describes it, as a centralized and pretty market-free plan, seems kind of unreasonable to me. The basis of the Romney plan was once popular with Democrats, which is interesting to me. It seems like another place (like Obamacare) where the candidates are trying to draw clear party lines around something that's basically bipartisan. In that way, I agree with you: the lack of compromise is at its worst here, where a middle option is pretty agreeable and has at its core something each candidate is promoting. The way that things are being held back now, like you said, is especially worrying to me with Medicare because it strikes me as kind of time-sensitive.

I don't know about this article. I'm in the entitlements group for the issues project, and a lot of what I've seen runs contrary to what he says. Here: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1012/81900_Page2.html#ixzz28Akgfkta is a study that says Romney's healthcare plan would leave 72 million uninsured, and here: http://www.standard.net/stories/2012/10/11/study-details-obama-romney-health-care-differences is another that says though both of them will raise premiums for seniors by 2020, Romney's will cause a larger raise. The main issue I have with this article is that it presents Romney's medicare plan as a "market-based" alternative to Obama's "centralized healthcare" plan. This is just so far from true. Obama's plan is based on conservative ideology, and it is based heavily on the market keeping prices down in a purified market.

While I have not spent a large amount of time deciphering the differences between Obamacare and Romneycare and the receptions of these plans by Democrats and Republicans alike, I had been under the impression that they were very similar, and the articles Cody posted bring up good points about the intersections of the plans. I found this concluding sentence to be rather funny, "the Romney-Ryan approach might work," after lengthily dissecting both plans and ending up in favor of Romney's, the writer does not even feel comfortable making a declarative, positive statement about Romneycare. While obviously no one can say for sure what will happen in the future or how policies will effect individuals, this just demonstrates the lack of solidity in this debate.

Now that the election is over, I'm really curious how this aspect of entitlements in America is going to change. With Obama elected for a second term, I guess we just have to have faith that none of the criticism's he levied against Obama's expansion of Medicare are true. Personally, Medicare not being slashed is one of the outcomes of the election I am most relieved about. During the race, it's easy to consider the 45 million you mention as numbers and a part of big-government/small-government rhetoric, but dropping these people, not numbers, from an important government program would have been pretty awful in my opinion. As a side note, the way that Medicaid keeps costs down that the author describes is new to me, and pretty compelling.