politically tinkering with what's already there >>> starting from scratch.
Spoken like someone that has no idea about policy and the political climate at the time.
Obama passed a huge stimulus package..he had da juice to tinker with Medicaid...da fact that hr passed that Obamacare monstrosity is facts enough
-The stimulus was a compromise with Blue Dogs and centrist in the Senate. Obama wanted like 400 Billion more that he got, nearly half of what liberal economist said he should have asked for.
-Like Rex pointed out the original draft of the ACA was different than what was passed, again he compromised with centrist.
-This talking point that Obama could push through whatever he wanted is ********.
-You have no idea how a program like Medicaid works. Medicaid expansion is popular with conservative governors after the fact, it wasn't at the time. All the GOP were offering was tort reform, and go look at McCain's plan to see the "centrist" Republican plan. It was the usually free market selling across state lines that would have been a) ineffective b) you would have hated because it would have taken away your federal government subsidization
-To expand Medicaid to cover everyone would have cost a **** ton more money, and Obama would have had to find the revenue somewhere. He would not be able to just tazx the rich because a) that would have been impossible to get through, even some liberal down for the public option would have said that is too much, sop then you have to go to middle class tax breaks. And for political, legal, economic reasons imposing a middle class tax increases.
Not only that to make it work, Obama would have had to nationalize Medicaid. Medicaid right now is administered at the state level.
So you sound ridiculous saying that Obama had the political power to increase taxes on everyone, nationalize Medicaid creating a new Federal government division, and that would be cool with centrist and the GOP.
For once, stop and research before you talk. Relying on political talking points just makes you look silly.