Pardon our indulging in a little more schadenfreude over the success of Obamacare in its first enrollment cycle. After years of gibberish about "death panels," tripling insurance premiums, beellions being kicked off of their insurance plans, deficit busting, and the end of Freedom in America (courtesy of right-wing media, the Koch brothers and other lying malefactors), we have millions more Americans being covered by affordable health insurance. While the dead-ender right isn't finished with Obamacare (and will never give up), they may yet pay a price for going all-in on opposing this humane and decent achievement. Here are snippets of some worthwhile readings:
The announcement of eight million Obamacare sign-ups may finally be enough to jolt commentators into realizing that maybe, just maybe, the Republican plan to build an entire campaign against the law for the next six months might suffer from a few imperfections. The President, for his part, seized on the moment to urge Democratic candidates to stand proudly by the law’s achievements — and to attack Republicans for wanting to strip them away.
Josh Marshall:
On Obamacare, the Republican party has bet big on failure for four years. Now the results are in. And they lost. Big time.
Of course, substance policy success and political outcomes aren't the same thing. And just as importantly they do not always run on the same time scale. So it is entirely possible. I would say it is likely that the GOP will still derive benefits this November from the core of voters who are extremely upset about Obamacare, extremely motivated to vote and also happen to be the same people who routinely turn out in disproportionate numbers in mid-term elections. But on the core of the policy, which I think there is good reason to believe will align with political outcomes in the future, the results are in. And they lost.And, finally, Lucia Graves at the National Journal calls out specific Republican
