"I'm not sure how racism worked its way into an article on health care."

That confusion may be a product of poor reading comprehension. Notice that my comment was not a direct reply to the article, but one directed to a secondary question raised by the article. (Specifically, "Why, if we know what works, are these known solutions not being implemented in America?")

The answer, again, is that these systems depend on a social contract which is flatly incompatible with the white supremacist ideology that, for a variety of structural reasons, still holds a remarkable and disproportionate amount of power within our political system.

"But, your assertions that the TEA Party and Republicans are inherently racist are misplaced."

Um, no dude. Those are your assertions, not mine. Since I never mentioned Republicans or Tea Partiers at all, I could not have said anything specific about either. Indeed, I can think of many Republicans - some I know personally - who are deeply embarrassed by this concentration of racist, jingoist, revanchism that has not only found its way into their party, but has taken to calling those who try tempering their most toxic characteristics as "RINOs" (that's "Republicans In Name Only", in case you were unfamiliar with the term).

But since you mention history, let's discuss that. This toxic group, as you seem to know, is not new to American life. They were a principle target of Abraham Lincoln and the Republican party of the 19th century. What is (relatively) new is their occupation and transformation of the Republican party, and the way they turned what had been bastion of opposition into their home.

The switch started in the wake of LBJ's "betrayal" in signing Civil Rights legislation. LBJ was, of course, a Democrat. And he was faced with choosing between the people he saw as the future of the party and the Dixiecrats (as they were known), who represented its racist, soiled, and discredited past. He made the right choice, and in doing so, rendered a large block of Southern white supremacists politically homeless.

They didn't stay that way for long. By the 1970s they were staging an aggressive takeover of the once-hated Republican party, employing a heady mixture of religious fundamentalism, supply side economics, and "tough on crime" rhetoric, bringing a messianic zeal to re-establishing the dominance they'd lost with the scrapping of Jim Crow laws.

The GOP managed to temper and accommodate their presence through the presidency of George Bush senior. But his defeat after one term in office signaled the end of the moderation. By the time Bill Clinton was in the White House, Newt Gingrich attained the Speakership, and the extremist elements began calling the shots within the GOP. This marked the completion of an fundamental transformation. Within period of two decades they’d converted the Republican party from the traditional opponent of the Confederacy to the vehicle of its contemporary resurgence.

Getting back to health care, if you didn't see these people coming out in full force to oppose the ACA it's because you simply weren't paying attention. Like, not at all. In reality, the continued political presence and power of these people has an enormous amount to do with the irrationality of our medical system. (The same could also be said of our criminal justice and immigration systems.)

And the existence of these people is hardly a matter of speculation. We've had a number of racially charged incidents that become flash points for the racists to express their views and indicate their numbers. Consider the recent mayhem in Ferguson, where a white K-9 officer allowed his dog to urinate on the memorial set up by the mother of a young man killed by the same police force. It's impossible to chalk up contempt this raw as a rare an isolated thing when a staggering volume of social media posts indicates broad and deep support for this treatment - and worse - among certain quarters. Lynchings, may I remind you, are still a matter of living memory. And as open comment sections reveal, there are still plenty of Americans who would bring them back if they could. Thanks to the distorting effects of Senatorial overrepresentation in predominately rural states and pro-GOP gerrymandering of the House, their electoral power vastly exceeds their numbers. They do not represent America, but they do represent a major problem for America, and have done so since before the Civil War.

But the good news, is that their attitudes are not replicating themselves across generations as reliably as they once did. Given time, this problem will solve itself. For those who can't wait, I recommend a focus on the structural reforms that will accelerate their demise. Specifically, that means an end to closed primaries and partisan redistricting (i.e. gerrymandering) and much greater access to the ballot box.

In any case, if you are going to attempt lecturing people on the history of political alignments, make sure the version you’re trying to push doesn’t conveniently stop in the mid 60s, just before one of the most momentous realignments in American history took place. Being that economical with the facts makes you look stupid, dishonest, or both and HN is not the place to pull that shit.