Obamacare Will Survive: Slate.Com Says Democrats Are the Real Winners in 2010 and I am Afraid They Are Right

Yeah, Republicans won big last week. To me, it doesn't feel like its morning in America though. It feels like Republicans made promises they may not be willing to keep or may not want to keep. Consider the words of this Republican Congressman-elect Billy Long from Missouri 7 who says he wants to repeal Obamacare, but then goes on to praise major components of Obamacare. Here's Republican Billy Long on Obamacare:



Slate.com isn't in mourning, and this should concern conservatives. One would think with the beating they received last Tuesday they would be feeling like we did after Obama and the Democrats won in 2008. They don't. In fact, they are claiming victory in 2010 for Democrats and I fear they are right.

I have said I doubt the Republicans repeal Obamacare once they discover the power and money that in it for them. I have also stated the way our Constitution defines how legislation is passed and vetoed, it would be next to impossible to repeal it before it goes into effect. They may try not funding it, but someone how someway, there will be some sneaky maneuvering in Congress to get it funded. Sorry, I don't mean to sound like a defeatist. I want to be optimistic, but how can you when you have Republicans like Billy Long praising parts of Obamacare and whose main argument against it throughout the election has been we can't afford it. That has never stopped the federal expansion of leviathan.

Slate.com writes:

A party that loses a House seat can win it back two years later, as Republicans just proved. But a party that loses a legislative fight against a middle-class health care entitlement never restores the old order. Pretty soon, Republicans will be claiming the program as their own. Indeed, one of their favorite arguments against this year's health care bill was that it would cut funding for Medicare. Now they're pledging to rescind those cuts. In 30 years, they'll be accusing Democrats of defunding Obamacare.

I have been saying this for months.

Legislative majorities come and go. This healthcare bill is forever. A win in November is very poor compensation for this debacle now. … No illusions please: This bill will not be repealed.

The real problem for Republicans will come in future elections when Obamacare is used against them as another talking point. The Republicans don't want you to have healthcare once the next generation of Americans are conditioned to Obamacare. This has been the predictable cycle of American politics since the New Deal and Great Society.

Will Republicans revisit health care? Sure. Will they enact some changes to the program? Yes, and Democrats will help them. Every program needs revisions. Republicans will get other things, too: business tax breaks, education reform, more nuclear power, and a crackdown on earmarks. These are issues on which both parties can agree. Which is why, if you're a Democrat, you deal with them after you've lost your majority—not before.

It's funny, in a twisted way, to read all the post-election complaints that Democrats lost because they thought only of themselves. Even the chief operating officer of the party's leading think tank, the Center for American Progress, says Obama failed to convince Americans "that he knows their jobs are as important as his." That's too bad, because Obama, Pelosi, and their congressional allies proved just the opposite. They risked their jobs—and in many cases lost them—to pass the health care bill. The elections were a painful defeat, and you can argue that the bill was misguided. But Democrats didn't lose the most important battle of 2010. They won it.