Obamacare: The resistance endures

After three years, Obamacare remains unpopular. Both the raw numbers and the intensity favor its opponents. Last month, for the first time ever, Gallup found that a majority of Americans oppose a government guarantee of health insurance for all. The ongoing resistance to Obamacare is a grassroots phenomenon. It has probably intensified since the election, as many disappointed voters (and non-voters) have sought an outlet for their frustrations. …

Officials in nearly half the states have joined the resistance thus far, by declining to establish the health-insurance “exchanges” essential to the law and/or to implement its costly Medicaid expansion. If states hold the line, then insurers, hospitals, and such — who were counting on those subsidies to offset Obamacare’s taxes and Medicare cuts — will join the chorus demanding that Congress reopen the issue. …

Obamacare still faces a barrage of lawsuits. Those challenging the contraceptives mandate and the Independent Payment Advisory Board won’t kill the law. But they might improve it. Either way, they will keep its negatives high. The Pacific Legal Foundation’s challenge to the individual mandate could take down the entire statute. Kaiser Health News says Oklahoma attorney general Scott Pruitt’s lawsuit is “by far the broadest and potentially most damaging of the legal challenges” related to Obamacare, and “even some health law supporters concede [it] seems correct as a literal reading of the most relevant provisions.” If Oklahoma prevails, “the whole structure [of] the health care reform law starts to fall apart.” Look how panicked the law’s supporters are. Tell me again why now is the time to “accept defeat”?