Some liberals react angrily to any comparison of Obamacare to the Iraq War, saying that their project is not getting anyone killed. The point should be conceded to them, but not too hastily. They have maintained, with more vehemence than evidence, that Obamacare will save lives by extending health insurance to people who lack it. If their premise is right but their plan ends up reducing the number of people with insurance, then they will indeed have caused deaths. Anyway, an analogy is not an identity.

There is a final parallel between the troubles that beset the Iraq and Obamacare projects that has not received much attention in the partisan debate. Both sets of troubles were not really predicted by the opponents who later claimed vindication because of them. The anti-war movement warned that fighting in Iraq would produce blowback terrorism against American civilians and chemical-weapons deaths among American troops. What actually happened — the disintegration of the Iraqi state followed by America’s desperate attempt to pick up the pieces — did not feature heavily in the opposition’s arguments.

The foes of Obamacare argued that it would increase rather than decrease costs, reduce access to doctors, and so forth. Very few of them, however, foresaw that the federal government (and many state governments) would be incapable of developing the websites the program required in the requisite time. They thought that the “markets” that Obamacare created would be misshapen and irrational. They did not doubt that the administration would be able to create them at all.