Insurers couldn't deny coverage due to existing conditions
Kids could stay on parents until 26 even if they aren't in school
There were also subsidies for the lowest income people to help pay for open market plans.
This is something right? This is a step in the right direction?
If one party wants this and the other wants to dismantle then the first is left and the latter right.
And also practicality. Extreme people are highly motivated to push their agenda, and that requires a party. They adapt and find a way to participate, one way or another. Often simply by ramping up awareness of the opponent party's inevitable extremes.
The real question is: how do the moderates in a party operate, and are they currently tolerated and reasonably well represented within the party.
(I am using extreme here to mean a lack of operating in objective reality, or a strong will to divide who "matters" from who doesn't. Usually they go together.)
In a representative democracy it doesn't matter what you believe only what the person you vote for believes.
However, IMHO this doesn't really matter because in the US both the left and the right tend to score high on authoritarianism on the freedom vs. authoritarian axis on a two-dimensional political spectrum view if you look at their actual policies and views they defend. That even includes the almost nonexistent US far left. Strongly anti-authoritarian viewpoints are extremely rare in the US. Even self-proclaimed "libertarians" in the US tend to have fairly authoritarian views when you press them about it, they're usually merely anti-federal-government pro business right-wing neoliberals.
Plenty of people wouldn't even count her as "left".