> I've been confused for years as to why that wasn't the proposed solution.
It wasn't because a political concern was to get something that could pass without beign scuttled by pushback from the industry and resistance Congressional Republicans and even from conservative Democrats that met and scuttled Clinton's reform efforts (why Clinton didn't seek a simple single-payer solution is another question), and so pretty much all the proposals from the major Democratic candidates in 2008 were variations on the mandatory/subsidized insurance purchase idea that had been being pushed by the insurance industry since, IIRC, the early 00's, and had been frequently floated in Republican circles -- including being a signature accomplish for Mitt Romney in Massachussettes.)
It wasn't because a political concern was to get something that could pass without beign scuttled by pushback from the industry and resistance Congressional Republicans and even from conservative Democrats that met and scuttled Clinton's reform efforts (why Clinton didn't seek a simple single-payer solution is another question), and so pretty much all the proposals from the major Democratic candidates in 2008 were variations on the mandatory/subsidized insurance purchase idea that had been being pushed by the insurance industry since, IIRC, the early 00's, and had been frequently floated in Republican circles -- including being a signature accomplish for Mitt Romney in Massachussettes.)