They still think that’s a good thing… Democrats Own Obamacare | National Review Online.
Other points are more problematic. The defunders argue that once Obamacare subsidies go out, people will get hooked on them and support for repeal will tank. Their critics argue that there may be so many glitches (Obama’s word) in the rollout of the health-insurance exchanges that support will fall below the present low levels.
The fact is that no one knows for sure. But whatever happens, there are good reasons for Republicans to regard Obamacare as a legitimate target.
One is that, unlike Social Security and Medicare, the law was passed by Democrats only, with no bipartisan consultation. Democrats could do that only because accidents — like the later-overturned prosecution of Alaska Republican Ted Stevens — gave them a 60-vote supermajority in the Senate.
That’s a contrast with the 2003 Medicare Part D prescription-drug bill, which, as Ornstein points out, Democrats didn’t try to undercut after it was passed. But Democrats were widely consulted during the legislative process, and a nontrivial number of them voted for the final version.
A second point is that Obamacare — unlike Social Security, Medicare, and Part D — wasn’t consistently supported in public-opinion polls. Quite the contrary.
Please don’t pass this bill, the public pleaded, speaking in January 2010 through the unlikely medium of the voters of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts when they elected Republican Scott Brown to the Senate as the 41st vote against Obamacare.
Democrats went ahead anyway, at the urging of Speaker Nancy Pelosi and with the approval of President Barack Obama. They made that decision knowing that, without a 60th vote in the Senate, the only legislative path forward was for the House to pass a bill identical to the one the Senate passed in December 2009.
No one had intended that to be the final version. Democrats expected to hold a conference committee to comb the glitches out of the Senate bill and the version the House passed in November.
Voters had done all they could do to signal that they wanted not a Democratic version of Obamacare but a bipartisan compromise or no legislation at all. Obama and Pelosi ignored that demand.
Under those circumstances, it’s not surprising that Republicans — politicians and voters — regard the passage of the law as illegitimate. And that they believe they are morally justified in seeking repeal and replacement of legislation they consider gravely harmful to the nation.
You may or may not agree with those judgments. But it shouldn’t be hard to see why Republicans feel that way.
Those feelings have been intensified as glitch after glitch in Obamacare come to light — and as the president indicates, contrary to his constitutional duty, that he will not faithfully execute parts of the law.
When they passed Obamacare, Democrats thought they were achieving a triumph free of any cost. Now, as Obamacare founders, they are paying the price.
They just don’t know it yet.
I’m not nearly so open minded as Michael Barone that once the government cheese is handed out that it can be taken back.
