So, one side "insists" on the "total repeal" of existing legislation; the other side "fears reopening debate." Hmmm, how could we possibly judge which of them was being more obstructionist? More from the story:
Republicans simply want to see the entire law go away and will not take part in adjusting it. Democrats are petrified of reopening a politically charged law that threatens to derail careers as the Republicans once again seize on it before an election year.Yes, it sounds like partisans on both sides are equally responsible for this standoff. Rather than partisans on one side betting everything on an outright obstructionist approach. (Cf: Debt ceiling fight, "the sequester," etc.) And more on the consequences from Jamelle Bouie:
As a result, a landmark law that almost everyone agrees has flaws is likely to take effect unchanged.
"I don't think it can be fixed," Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, said in an interview. "Everything is interconnected, 2,700 pages of statute, 20,000 pages of regulations so far. The only solution is to repeal it, root and branch."
It's hard to overstate the extent to which this is a break with the past. The Social Security Act was followed by two decades of major changes... Likewise, as the Times notes, the Medicare Act came in for changes in 1967 and 1972, as lawmakers made corrections and adjusted for unforeseen circumstances.Or, as the Marxists used to put it, a strategy of intensifying the contradictions -- the worse, the better. These days we just call that "gridlock."
Without the political leeway necessary to make adjustments to the Affordable Care Act, the ride to implementation may be bumpier than expected. This, in all likelihood, is the point behind GOP opposition to changing the law.
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