If we want to talk about this in terms of legislative intent, it is clear that Democratic leaders in Congress intended to pass a finely tuned, carefully edited measure based on a compromise between various versions of the bill that existed in late 2009. But it’s even clearer that this never happened, because when the time came, they didn’t have the votes to do it.

When different versions of Obamacare passed the House and Senate originally in 2009, Congressional Democrats intended to work out the details in a conference committee. They intended to create a final version that both houses could pass, and we’d all live happily (or unhappily) ever after.

But then a Republican, Scott Brown, unexpectedly won a January 2010 Senate special election. In doing so, he deprived Democrats of their Senate supermajority, and thus of the ability to pass any version of Obamacare except one – the imperfect version of Obamacare that had already passed the Senate. Unable to pass the “ideal” Obamacare they had intended and hoped for, they passed the imperfect version – and now we’re stuck with it.