So the difference is startling: 79 percent of Democrats said they’ll be able to keep their doctor, compared with just 44 percent of Republicans — almost a 2-to-1 gap. Unless doctors start dropping patients according to their party affiliation, those two groups can’t both be right.

The same is true for a question about whether people expect to pay for medical care. Here the gap is even larger: 86 percent of Republicans said yes, compared with just 47 percent of Democrats. Again, unless insurers structure co-payments and deductibles by party, they can’t both be right.

Based on those numbers, one of two things will happen in 2014. The first is that access to doctors will fall and the cost of care will go up for most Americans; Democrats will (gradually) realize they’ve been misled, and support for the law will collapse.

The second possibility is that access to doctors and the cost of care won’t change for most Americans; Republicans will (gradually) realize they’ve been misled, and the case against Obamacare will disintegrate for the average voter. Fear of that outcome may explain why Republican leaders have been so frantic in trying to undermine the law now — they’re afraid that once their base realizes the warnings about Obamacare were wrong, they will stop paying attention.