“Maybe I should just say karma is a serious thing,” said Neera Tanden, who was a top health official in the Obama administration. “Health care is hard. Governing is hard. And Republicans are now living with the fruits of never putting forward a plan and making promises they can’t keep.”…

“It’s healthcare, it should be easy. Everyone goes to the doctor. But it’s super hard,” Gruber said. “As a result, it’s easy to demonize everything.”

He added, “They (Republicans) have spent years trying to demonize Obamacare and say there was something better, but there was nothing better … It’s overall a sad story. I don’t think anybody can feel good about this.”

Clinton strategist James Carville, a veteran of both recent Democratic reform efforts, has a maxim that “the mover on health care loses,” as he told Democratic donors at a January retreat in Florida. “To do something is to lose.”