The ACA is the exception that shows exactly how hard it is to pass such a bill.
The ACA passed with 0 republican votes. It only passed because Democrats controlled the House, Senate, and Whitehouse. That still wouldn't have been enough (due to the filibuster), but the Democrats also had a big enough majority (60 of 100) in the Senate to override any filibuster.
I do believe that if Democrats had that much political power today, we would see much more significant climate change billa being passed.
Democrats have had the power to pass legislation without Republican support during the following periods:
* The 1993 - 1994 congressional term[1], during which they tried and failed to do healthcare reform, but succeeded in passing bills for medical leave, NAFTA, gun control, violent crime, taxes, and education.
* June 30, 2009 - February 4, 2010 (72 working days total)[2], during which they passed a major healthcare reform bill, the Affordable Care Act.
From 1981 - 1992, 1995 - 2008, and 2011 - 2020, Republicans have held the presidency or at least one house of Congress. During 2009-2010 and 2021-present, they have also abused the Senate filibuster to obstruct almost the entire Democratic agenda, with the goal of making the public perceive Democrats as ineffective. (As you have seen for yourself, it worked!) In the current term, the Democrats have a bare 50%+1 majority, which means that the most conservative Democrat (usually Joe Manchin of West Virginia) effectively has a veto.
On top of that, the Supreme Court has been controlled by Republican partisans since 2006, when Samuel Alito was appointed. Currently there is a 5-vote majority of extreme Republican partisans. This creates an additional Republican veto point for effectively any Democratic legislation.
One can (and should) criticize the Democrats for not ending the filibuster when they had the chance. But the reality is that the American legislative process involves a lot of veto points, and it only takes control of one to kill a bill.
You're just wrong. Just because no republicans voted for it doesn't mean that enormous compromise was necessary to get certain independents and conservative democrats to vote for it, which is exactly what happened. The entire legislative approach to the ACA was to get a 60 vote filibuster-proof majority in the Senate (and subsequently to prevent the bill from returning to the Senate because of changes made by the House), in a Senate that only had 58 democrats.
The ACA was passed with 0 votes from Republicans in the House or Senate, and there was a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. There was no need or desire for real comprise on the ACA.
In fact, after it passes, Speaker Pelosi and Senate majority leader Reid had a little parade where they gloated about getting it through without Republicans.
a Medicare-for-all proposal never had a chance of making it through congress because it needed GOP votes to pass.
Incorrect. For awhile, Democrats controlled the Presidency and the House, and the Senate Democrat caucus had a cloture-capable 60 vote supermajority. They didn't need a single GOP vote for anything. For ACA, no GOP amendments were even given the dignity of a simple up/down floor vote.
The Democrats could barely get a health care bill through in 2009, a health care bill that was based on a Republican plan. Ballooning health care costs were an issue throughout all the 2000s, which nearly everybody agreed needed to be addressed in some manner. The concept of Democrats also being able to also push through a carbon tax at that time is absolutely ludicrous. Try convincing the average Republican that climate change is 1) happening, 2) caused by humans, 3) addressable without destroying the economy. We can't even get broad consensus that there is a problem, much less on a solution.
You need 60% in the senate to get anything passed. There have been many cases where one party controlled all three but couldnt accomplish much due to the filibuster. Famously Obama's first couple years.
The Democrats have the majority in both houses and could pass the bill without the Republicans if they wanted. They don't do that because they want consensus, especially so close to the election.
Democrats had the only votes and the only say in every element of "Obamacare". Republicans were not even allowed to see the bill before the vote was taken, hence zero Republicans voting for it.
Most legislation needs 60 votes to pass the Senate, which means you need at least 8 Democrats (counting the two independents with them). Legislation which Republicans can pass by themselves is the exception, not the rule. One of the problems they had with their health care bill was that it had to fit into the narrow budget reconciliation rules so that they could pass it with a simple majority.
Obama had filibuster-proof majorities for his first two years (when they passed the ACA with only one republican house vote and none in the senate) then a split congress for four.
When measured by party control, Clinton, GHW Bush, and Reagan all faced more opposition in congress than Obama has.
To pass ACA the Democrats needed 60 out of 100 seats in the Senate and they had 58. To pass it they caucused with two independents, and one of them, Joe Lieberman, specifically would not vote for it if it had a public option.
The Democrats controlled both the House and the Senate in 2009-2010. Anything Obama and other Democrats thought was really important could have been forced through then.
(Indeed, they did force a major health care reform bill through with zero Republican support, mirroring how a major tax reform bill was forced through with zero Democrat support a few weeks ago.)
It's impossible because you both political parties want exclusively mutual results
You can't blame ACA's flaws on party disputes -- Republicans were allowed no input to the process, and it passed on Democrat votes alone. Republicans and rank-and-file Democrats* weren't even given the final bill to read before the vote*.
You are completely wrong, the democrats didn't have an overwhelming majority in the senate. They had the minimum they needed to pass obamacare, 66. Remember that they wanted to have a single payer option and the damn democratic senator from nebraska didn't want that, and he thought if "he single-handedly stopped single payer" he'd be re-elected. So that one senator stopped single payer from being in the bill - he did vote for it after that. And that guy wasn't re-elected. Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska. Anywhoo, you are completely and utterly incorrect about the dems have an overwhelming majority to do whatever they wanted. In the senate they had the bare minimum, and anyone who felt they wanted a change could get it.
The ACA passed with 0 republican votes. It only passed because Democrats controlled the House, Senate, and Whitehouse. That still wouldn't have been enough (due to the filibuster), but the Democrats also had a big enough majority (60 of 100) in the Senate to override any filibuster.
I do believe that if Democrats had that much political power today, we would see much more significant climate change billa being passed.
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