The Left protects its own:
“Obamacare scandal!!!! No. Just Republican talking points”
“Why Letting Everyone Keep Their Health Care Plan is a Terrible Idea”
“Don't Like Obamacare? It Was the Republicans' Idea, Says Liberal Democrat”
And my personal favorite:
“Despite Problems, Obamacare Remains Fairly Well Liked”
This is sort of like the old joke, “Other than that, how did you like the play, Mrs. Lincoln?” I’m sure knowing that some people still like certain parts of his plan is causing Mr. Obama no end of jubilation.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is a substantive and technical disaster, poorly crafted, invasive, exorbitant, and statist. But it is on that last point – statism – that loyalty to it follows from the Left as night follows day.
That a powerful central government with practical supervisory control of all governments beneath it is a moral good is central to the belief system of modern liberalism. Since no philosophy can exist without authority (as a source of truth and implementation of its program), it is only logical that a political system that jettisons God and transcendent truth must claim an alternative to Him.
Thus, aggregations of political power are seen as substitutes for the divine. If there is no God, or at least One with any relevance to human affairs, the state becomes the instrument for personal and social transformation.
So, to challenge the premise of “Obamacare” is not just mean, uncompassionate, and unfair (the standard ripostes of the Left), it is political heresy. Asserting that huge, complex, and controlling federal programs are arrogant by definition, dubious in motivation, ineffective in implementation, and disastrous in effect -- even if these contentions can be demonstrated logically, mathematically, and in practice -- is an intolerable proposition that has to be squashed.
As a result, the liberal critique of Obamacare will never include a realistic appraisal of the plan itself, only of how to make it work better. It is for this reason that a number of commentators are proclaiming that modern political liberalism is in crisis.
Obamacare is the fruition of progressive hopes, a major leap forward to a statist society and one subtly but indelibly marketed as the harbinger of all government can and should do for its subjects -- I mean, citizens. An axiological (functional) failure will force people to reconsider liberalism’s ontology (the very nature of its being).
It is for this reason that Obamacare’s defenders are writing just about anything they can, from blaming Republicans for the system’s poor launch to diminishing its inherent unworkability, to defend it. They are playing for high stakes -- the very credibility of their comprehensive understanding of the meaning and purpose of the state -- and they know it.
ery credibility of their comprehensive understanding of the meaning and purpose of the state – and they know it.