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Obamacare and the false loss of choice

example · US politics · retold in 5 talks

The main argument against Obamacare was the false claim that the state would order you which doctor to take and so deprive you of choice.

2015: 1 talk 2017: 2 talks 2021: 1 talk 2022: 1 talk
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026

As told 4

“the main argument against obamacare, that it deprives you of a choice. they painted this false danger the state will order you which doctor to take”
“He did touch an extremely sensitive point of the ruling ideological consensus.”
“his Obamacare was a scam, blah blah. But he did trigger something, an extremely important debate”

What it carries

one story, many jobs: the ideas this anecdote is deployed to argue, one tally mark per use (an idea page shows the same relation from the other end, as its shelf of stories)

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Every retelling 5

The main argument against Obamacare was the false claim that the state would order you which doctor to take and so deprive you of choice., illustrating choice and freedom,good alienation
Conservative liberals attacked Obamacare as limiting freedom because the state prescribes your doctor, but Obama didn't limit freedom; universal healthcare liberates you from constantly worrying about disease and thus gives you more real freedom., illustrating concrete freedom,abstract freedom
Universal health care is non-controversial in Canada and Europe but triggers a constitutional crisis in the US, its modest scope combined with the outsized reaction from Republicans shows it touched a genuine symptomal point of the ideological consensus., illustrating symptomal points
Žižek defends Obamacare not as sufficient but as a trigger that opened a debate and set processes in motion, used to argue that imperfect reforms matter because they start chains of change., illustrating reformism as starting point,the day after,political strategy
Žižek cites Obamacare as a positive example of making something previously unthinkable in American political culture suddenly real, the value lies in forcing a crack in the ideological common sense, not in the policy's completeness., illustrating ideology,systemic change,capitalism