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Well, that was the assumption about Roe, too. And look what happened there.
I think that's in an inaccurate comparison on two levels.
The ACA fundamentally gives people a direct financial benefit. Reference Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security - and their proportion of the budget each year - and its self-evident that direct cash / benefit programs are the stickiest in the American voting public. Roe guaranteed a right which, as personal as it was, is still ephemeral. A "right" doesn't show up in my checking account each month (or, in the case of healthcare benefits, prevent by checking account from going down each month).
Roe V Wade triggered a multi-decade long popular counter-movement to its passage at the Federal, State, and Local levels that self-sustained and routinely co-opted politicians to support it. Where are the local anti-ACA chapters? The real interest in repealing the ACA is pretty much, at this point, the passion project of a few truly committed think tankers, lobbyists, and maybe a half-handful of Congressmen.
All that being said, I actually do hold out long term hope that the ACA will be overturned or sufficiently neutered on the grounds that, eventually, the cost will be plainly identified as major drag on all economic growth. I think this will happen when we get to deep boomer aging, where the Median boomer is now in that lifespan where they required constant and pricey medical care and/or assisted living. Combined with social security going bankrupt within the next 10 years, this will create such a stark revelation of "the old and dying stealing everything from the younger generations" that Congress (at that point rid of boomers almost by definition) will have to act.
Heh, I just wrote, "Congress will have to act." Maybe I am the asshole.
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