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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsObamacare is a Done Deal
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/11/obamacare-done-deal
Obamacare is a Done Deal
By Kevin Drum
| Tue Nov. 26, 2013 7:52 AM PST
Ezra Klein gives us a progress report on Obamacare:
A spin through HealthCare.Gov this morning went smoothly. The site loaded quickly. The process progressed easily. There were no error messages or endless hangs....My experience isn't rare. There are increasing reports that HealthCare.Gov is working better perhaps much better for consumers than it was a few short weeks ago. "Consumer advocates say it is becoming easier for people to sign up for coverage," report Sandhya Somashekhar and Amy Goldstein in the Washington Post.
....Reports from inside the health care bureaucracy are also turning towards optimism. People who knew the Web site was going to be a mess on Oct. 1st are, for the first time, beginning to think HealthCare.Gov might work....The Obama administration is certainly acting like they believe the site has turned the corner. Somashekhar and Goldstein report that they're "moving on to the outreach phase, which had taken a back seat as they grappled with the faulty Web site.
....It's clear that HealthCare.Gov is improving and, at this point, it's improving reasonably quickly. It won't work perfectly by the end of November but it might well work tolerably early in December. A political system that's become overwhelmingly oriented towards pessimism on Obamacare will have to adjust as the system's technological infrastructure improves.
I think the best translation of that last sentence is, "Republicans will soon have to find something else to gripe about." But it won't work. Conservatives have always known that once Obamacare is up and running, it will become a popular program that's impossible to repeal. That's one of the reasons they've been so frantic to stop it before January 1. And they've been right about this. People respond far more passionately to the prospect of losing something than they do to gaining something, and once they have Obamacare they'll fight to keep it. In a few months, it will be nearly as enshrined in the American social welfare firmament as Social Security and Medicare.
Republicans have run out of time, and they know it. Their fixation on Obamacare already looks sort of balmythis weekend's deal with Iran was designed to draw attention away from Obamacare? Seriously?and it's only going to look loopier as time goes by. Getting Obamacare to the end zone wasn't easy, and Obama almost fumbled the ball at the one-yard line, but he's finally won. There's nothing left for conservatives to do. Love it or hate it, Obamacare is here to stay.
Berlum
(7,044 posts)That won't take long. The Whiney RepubliWankers, Inc. have teams of highly paid right-wing propaganda consultants at work on it now.
They are rolling out a "Lumpy Gravy - Obama's Fault" meme for Thanksgiving right now. It will be part of Bill 'Draft Dodger' O'Reilly's WAR ON THANKSGIVING Faux-a-thon.
napkinz
(17,199 posts)monmouth3
(3,871 posts)analogy...LOL..
Cane4Dems
(305 posts)im a huge sports fan so i can confirm this is a spot-on analogy.....see you do know something about football haha
monmouth3
(3,871 posts)Scurrilous
(38,687 posts)Pretzel_Warrior
(8,361 posts)spanone
(135,873 posts)the media just learned about it in the last 2 months
BlueStreak
(8,377 posts)Normally, there is practically zero chance of the leader getting knocked out. It did happen to Daschle a few years back, but that'd very unusual. McConnell "should be extraordinarily safe.
But we have a real race there. And the X factor very well could be "Obamacare". The ACA is working great in Kentucky. I think there is a very good chance that by election time, a majority of Kentuckians will personally know somebody who is much better off because of the ACA.
Grimes seems to be biding her time on this. This is wise. There is no benefit in winning the argument 12 months before the election, But about next Labor Day, this could one of her strongest arguments.
I just saw this TPM article from a couple of days ago, saying basically the same thing.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/lundergan-grimes-mcconnell-kynect
This will be very interesting. There are clearly some places where "Obamacare" won't help much. But it really could be the straw that breaks McConnell's back, and wouldn't that be sweet irony?