The Core of the ACA

As the ACA goes into effect, I think we can all agree that it reflects the longstanding priorities of conservative Republicans:

Medicaid embarks on a massive transformation Wednesday — from a safety-net program for the most vulnerable to a broad-based one that finds itself at the front lines of the continuing political and ideological battle over the Affordable Care Act.

Already the nation’s largest health-care program, Medicaid is being expanded and reshaped by the law to cover a wider array of people.

Among them will be many who consider themselves middle class — people such as Sandy Kush, who initially bristled when she learned that she would be joining a program she had always thought of as being only for the poor.

As everyone knows, this is just the Heritage Foundation plan for health care:

“I think it is very bad social welfare policy,” said Edmund F. Haislmaier, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation. “You are taking people who are by and large young, healthy and perfectly capable productive members of society and encouraging them to become dependent on public assistance. This is the very last population you want to do that for.”

Well, perhaps that particular member of the Heritage Foundation didn’t get the memo, but still, the ACA plainly reflects Barack Obama’s fundamental belief that health care should be handled entirely by private entities.