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How Republicans blew their best chance to dismantle ObamaCare

19 October 2013 00:13 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. On Oct. 1, nonessential functions of the federal government ground to a halt as Republicans dug in against ObamaCare. On the very same day, the health care exchanges created by ObamaCare went live, albeit with a glitch-plagued rollout, APA reports quoting news.yahoo.com.

Early hiccups with the exchanges — a central piece of the health care law, which allows the uninsured to shop for coverage and obtain federal subsidies — were a debacle for the White House. However, the shutdown "obscured widespread problems" with the law, wrote the New York Times' Robert Pear, "giving the administration time to work out the kinks."

Those kinks have yet to be worked out. But Republicans have changed the subject so drastically that the White House may get to the finish line relatively unscathed.

"We have missed a golden opportunity to do something about it," Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) told Fox News.

Of course, the shutdown was originally an attempt by hardline conservatives to pressure President Obama into scrapping or undermining his signature domestic policy achievement. Yet in the end, Republicans came away with only a minor tweak, an income verification guarantee, that was already part of the law.

Time will probably work against the GOP going forward. The "clean" continuing resolution Republicans rejected to instead wander off on the quixotic defund mission would have only funded the government through mid-November. The final deal Republicans got, however, contained funding into January, while raising the debt ceiling to February.