Obamacare: The Fight Is Hardly Over

Obamacare: The Fight Is Hardly Over

Apr 04, 2014 03:00 am | W. James Antle III

W. James Antle III

Obamacare’s brief existence has been fraught with near-death experiences. At various points, it seemed unlikely to pass despite three-fifths Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress. The coalition behind the Affordable Care Act, stretching from pro-life Democrats to liberals who preferred single payer, appeared to be unraveling.
Once enacted, Obamacare had to survive a constitutional challenge. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli had a bad day defending the law in court, inviting unflattering comparisons to the bumbling, stumbling lawyer in My Cousin Vinny. (Googling to double-check the spelling of Verrilli’s name, the search engine prompts me to look for “Donald Verrilli incompetent.”)
Even the liberal Supreme Court justices seemed skeptical of the Obama administration’s legal reasoning. Court watchers began to suspect the law would be struck down. If all the conservative Republican appointees had stuck together, it would have been struck down.
After the controversial health care law survived both the Supreme Court and the 2012 presidential election, it looked like it might be killed by its own implementation. The year began with more private health insurance plans cancelled due to Obamacare than enrollees in the insurance exchanges. Abysmal enrollment figures, a premium “death spiral” and even a net reduction in the insured all seemed possible just a few weeks ago.
With the Obama administration now announcing 7.1 million people have signed up for the exchanges, the direst scenarios have been averted (at least for now). The law still isn’t working exactly as advertised, and those enrollment figures may well wilt under serious outside scrutiny, but it is working well enough to survive.
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