My first two years of ACA coverage were comparable both in price and in coverage to the high-end corporate group plan I'd had prior. (Remember, I ended up paying for it via COBRA, whereby I ended up knowing exactly what it cost.)

The ACA was a starting point -- the most that could be passed in the face of "the Party of No" that from the initial days of Obama's presidency declare total obstruction to be their over-riding, primary policy objective and political strategy.

Like any law and program -- just like those in private sector business -- it required management and improvement. Unfortunately, we instead got obstruction.

Law and regulation aren't magic, and they aren't "set and forget". You have to manage them, just like everything in this world.

I agree that traditional group insurance should not be separated from the individual market. Insurance companies shouldn't be permitted to cherry pick, neither by population selection nor by pricing. Frankly, I don't see private profit as basically compatible with what I see to be a public investment in the public's health. But with law and regulation, we seem to get at least partway there.

But then, the public's not too rational about this, itself. As I mentioned elsewhere, I spent a lot of my time and effort helping an addict of 20+ years, with two kids to care for, get clean, this past year. This included thousands of dollars of in-patient hospital treatment and aborted rehab program attendances, paid for by Medicaid that was greatly expanded, including especially drug and alcohol treatment, under the ACA.

In addition to the ACA's contribution, I stepped up personally, when this person couldn't hack the rehab programs, and I spent 3 months basically full time getting them to AA meetings, helping them find and get to work, covering with child care, etc. They managed to stay clean, and as far as I know, about one year out, now, they still are.

This fall, after they got back with their big "C" conservative significant other, I had to endure a long flurry of Facebook posts expressing their vehement support of Trump. The face of the very fellows (and yes, I use that gender choice somewhat specifically) who want to choke and kill off the very programs that helped this person get clean. AND that have enabled me, as I explained to them at one point, to be able to purchase health care insurance at all -- with no subsidy, for me.

In short, in my personal, anecdotal experience, I've found opponents of the ACA to be irrational people acting against their own self-interest. And selfish people, who take aid and have no concern for the next person who's going to come along and need it.

And while the ACA is far from perfect and has had to struggle, the preponderance of rhetoric against it is equally ill-informed and selfish. IMO and experience.

It was born in Massachusetts under the Romney government. Nationalized as the ACA, it was meant to be a middle of the road proposal that left the existing powers in place. It was proposed as a first year initiative at a time when not just individuals but businesses were making great outcry about increasing health care expenses -- year upon year double digit percentage increases in insurance premiums -- saying they wouldn't be able to compete with businesses in other nations having national health care and so much lower health care costs. It was obviously planned and queued up before the Obama campaign and nascent administration were made aware of the full depth and severity of the financial crisis. (Something for which I am still upset with Obama for not turning the FBI and Justice loose as was done in the wake of the Savings and Loan scandal in the '80's.)

Republicans initiate their selfish, self-serving doctrine of "No". ('We're going to make his a one-term presidency.' That was not just their politics but their operating policy.) They label the health care initiative "Obamacare". They make up the incendiary, false rhetoric of the supposed "death lists" that would be forthcoming.

They, up through Trump's election, eight years later, have presented no and have no sign of possessing any alternative plan for health care. Despite the endless rhetoric that they would "fix" health care.

If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. The ACA wasn't perfect, but it was a serious attempt to move towards a solution.

All the rest -- well, all it's proven itself to be is the problem.

All it's offered is a big pack of lies.