Author's Note

This article was finished five months before the election and as indicated in the opening paragraph, predicting the 2016 election was even more daunting than usual. I predicted that split government was the most likely outcome and like most others, my prediction was wrong. However the need for strategies that might be agreeable to a coalition of Republicans and Democrats is still likely to be necessary. Not to defund most of the ACA. Republicans can do that on their own through a budget reconciliation vote as long as the Republicans in the Senate can hold their slim majority together. But most politicians do not want to see 20 million more uninsured when they face re-election and replacing the ACA is likely to require cooperation from the Democrats. Perhaps some of the policy changes outlined in the article will prove helpful in this endeavor.