The right’s fantasy is shattered: Why Obamacare has already succeeded

[DonViejo]

Conservatives want you to believe that Obamacare is "beyond rescue" -- but the data tells a very different story

BRIAN BEUTLER

Last week, conservative Bloomberg columnist Megan McArdle and American Enterprise Institute fellow Scott Gottlieb debated New York magazine’s liberal columnist Jonathan Chait and former Assistant Surgeon General Douglas Kamerow over the proposition that Obamacare is “beyond rescue.”

You can watch the whole debate here if you have an hour and a half and a brick wall nearby to smash your head into. In the event that you’re unfamiliar with Salon dot com, suffice to say, I stand with Chait and Kamerow.

I didn’t write about this earlier because, even though McArdle and Gottleib won the debate in the eyes of those in attendance, I thought the proposition (which presumably they didn’t pick) was almost impossibly unfair to them. They had to convincingly argue that Obamacare had fallen into a persistent vegetative state; Chait and Kamerow could win simply by convincing people that it might come out of its coma at some point.

But then on Tuesday, McArdle imported many of the comments and arguments she used on the debate stage into a column called “Resolved: Obamacare Is Now Beyond Rescue,” so if she at any point believed the burdens of proof were stacked unevenly against her, I think it’s fair to assume that like so many conservatives she’s now completely certain that her position is correct and her arguments unassailable. Obamacare is beyond rescue.

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http://www.salon.com/2014/01/24/the_rights_fantasy_is_shattered_why_obamacare_has_already_succeeded/