" and ram through a PoS legislation "

Actually, the legislation wasn't that bad: it was based on a Heritage Foundation model, which (quite sensibly) admitted it doesn't work without a mandate. In the early years, O'Care bent down the medical inflation trajectory (which had been 400% of regular inflation for the prior decade), and even caused rebates to clients (like me!) when expenses didn't hit 80% of revenue.

Then Republicans unilaterally killed the mandate.

Blaming the architects isn't fair if you cut off the one leg both sides admit is VITAL. You can't call it Obamacare if you take away its central tenet.

Since the mandate was repealed, it's been Trumpcare.

Now, it's turning into The Unaffordable Care Act

"legislation that only helped the insurance companies."

Not true at all. It helped every Trustee of every Health Plan in America.

As I referenced above, the decade before O'Care saw 31% inflation, but 131% medical inflation, more than FOUR TIMES regular inflation. Health Plan Trustees were freaking out. I should know: I was a Health Plan Trustee, and my colleagues and I were freaking out.

Obamacare, combined with the fallout from the Bush Bust & Bailout of 2007-2009, bent the inflation trajectory downward, and gave a lot of breathing room to a lot of health plans. And forced rebates when profits exceeded 25% woke up the industry: any excessive jumps would just trigger excessive paperwork on the back end.

I've been on this blog over 20 years. Regulars know I've been against the ACA from the start, but always said I'd give it props if it addressed runaway medical inflation.

It did.

One more very important thing about the ACA:

Back in the 80s, no one had ever heard the phrase "pre-existing conditions". By 2008, that phrase was everywhere, and the baby boomers (virtually all with PECs) were just about to be tossed into high-risk pools, which were charging about 10X the COBRA rate at that time.

FTW, COBRA is made available to insured folks for ~18 months after termination, but because a) it takes all comers, and b) folks who know they'll need it are more likely to opt for it...the price is roughly the same as for a 64 yr old man, i.e., the top rate of the market. But while that was roughly $500-$600/mo in the year before the ACA, the high risk pools were charging roughly $5000-$6000/mo.