The Democratic architects of Obamacare knew full well that when they offered Americans an entitlement to which they were not entitled in 2010, it would be tremendously difficult to remove it.
Republicans made symbolic efforts to get rid of the unpopular health care law during the administration of the man who proposed it, but those efforts were never going anywhere because President Barack Obama was always at the end of the line with his veto pen.
Despite the broken promises, the lies about the law’s costs and the drying up of its insurance markets, the millions who gained medical coverage – almost nine of 10 with government subsidies – had something to which they now felt entitled. The government promised, they’d say. How can they take it away?
Yet, critics salivated. If we just had a Republican president and a Republican Congress, they dreamed, we could get rid of the hugely expensive law – costing $390 billion in 2017 but $500 billion in 2022 – once and for all.
Now the country’s got that – a Republican Congress which promised, if it ever had the chance, to repeal and replace the law, and a Republican president who vowed on the campaign trail to do the same thing.