A Liberal Who Doesn't Like Obamacare

I just finished reading Matt Taibbi's "Griftopia", his story about the Great Recession and other financial follies of the 21st century.  I was struck by his willingness to call some of the participants, particularly our leaders, idiots and worse.  Substantively, I was surprised at his view of Obamacare.  After all, he is a liberal and I would have thought in favor of the act. The title of the chapter about Obamacare is "The Trillion-Dollar Band-Aid".  Taibbi's basic argument is that Obamacare is essentially a political deal: the drug and insurance companies get massive subsidies, Obama gets their help in being re-elected.

I think Taibbi was opposed to Obamacare for two reasons.  He claims that the insurance business was exempted from the Sherman Antitrust Act, the Clayton Act and the Federal Trade Commission Act  and, thus, already had an advantage over other businesses.  Hence, "the insurance industry was given a permanent license to steal."   Taibbi is also disenchanted with Obama, primarily for not fulfilling many of his promises - particularly those regarding health reform - made as a candidate.