Stop waiting for ObamaCare to implode

But it’s clear now that one scenario with a lot of purchase among conservative opponents of Obamacare — that the law would “implode,” “collapse” or “unravel” — is highly unlikely. A quick death spiral was always a remote possibility, even if the early troubles of the exchange websites made it look a little less remote. Many congressional Republicans wanted to believe the idea, though, especially because they viewed it as one more reason they could avoid coming up with their own health-care agenda. (This was illogical — if the program was going to self-destruct in months, wouldn’t the country need a replacement ready? — but the psychological impulse was to avoid grappling with health-care issues.)

Supporters of Obamacare see the enrollment numbers as more evidence that the law is here to stay. Of course, those numbers don’t give us any reason to think that the law will do a lot of good at a reasonable price, or that its basic structure can be modified to pass that test. But the supporters are right that meeting the target of 7 million enrollments will make repealing and replacing the law harder.