One thing this shutdown battle illustrates is the difference between reaching a consensus decision and reaching a majority decision.
A consensus decision means a decision that everyone could at least accept, even if they didn't like it that much.
A majority decision means you had enough votes to enact a decision even if it was completely unacceptable to a large percentage of the group.
Congress usually works on a consensus type process, which is why there's so many ways a minority can throw a wrench into the works and stop the majority from enacting something the minority finds completely unacceptable.
There was never a consensus on how to reform health care. Even when it was passed, a majority of Americans opposed it (
CNN health care reform poll). You can legitimately argue that the "opposed" number is misleading, since a significant number of those opposed were opposed because the ACA didn't go far enough, but you can't argue that America ever reached a consensus on how to handle health care reform.
More significant is the strength of the opposition. Per CBS's poll (
from Polling Report, over 30% were strongly opposed even when the bill was approved. That's not at least accepting the decision, even if they don't particularly like it.
The conditions that existed in 2010 were a bit of quirk that rarely happens in Congress. One party had a large enough majority that they could ignore reaching a consensus and push through a bill that many Americans (and many members of Congress) found totally unacceptable. It's a bit of a violation of etiquette to do what Democrats did. It's also a bit naive to think that condition will last for long and they surely knew there'd be hell to pay at some point (which is why there's any etiquette at all when it comes to these things - the temptation to ignore consensus and go to majority rule when you can is hard to resist).
I don't agree with shutting down government over this (in fact, I'm very strongly against it), but you can't put
all of the blame for the situation that led to the shut down just on Republicans.
For the Republians in this fight - Right goal, but wrong tactic.