Wonkbook: Shutting down the government won’t stop Obamacare. It might even help it.
Wonkbook: Shutting down the government wont stop Obamacare. It might even help it.
by Ezra Klein and Evan Soltas at the Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/09/20/wonkbook-shutting-down-the-government-wont-stop-obamacare-it-might-even-help-it/?wpisrc=nl_wnkpm
"SNIP..................................
Obamacare's first year will be full of glitches and hiccups and mistakes and misfires. That's true for every big, complicated law (remember when Boehner called Medicare Part D's implementation "horrendous"?). The expectation is that Republicans will be able to take advantage of those problems. But if the early implementation comes in the context of an extended government shutdown, Republicans might well get blamed for implementation glitches as the media and voters ask whether the law wouldn't work more smoothly if the GOP hadn't turned out the lights.
Moreover, if Republicans get blamed for an annoying and unpopular government shutdown -- not to mention for some of Obamacare's problems -- that might blunt the gains they're likely to make in the 2014 midterms. More Democrats in Congress means more protection for Obamacare going forward.
So a government shutdown won't stop Obamacare from being implemented, but it might mean Republicans get blamed for some of the problems of implementation, and lose the ability to benefit politically from the inevitable hitches in the rollout.
The conservatives who won't yield against Obamacare might ultimately prove to be the law's best friends.
...............................SNIP"