Obamacare is here to stay

If the Republicans can't scrap Obamacare, what is the point of them?

They've had seven years to design a better replacement. During those seven years, many thoughtful free-market institutes came up with a choice of schemes that would be superior, not only to the current mess, but to the system that preceded it. There was a broad range of options to choose from – including the attractive idea of Singapore-style personal healthcare accounts. Yet, when the moment came, Republicans on the Hill fluffed it.

What were you thinking, senators? I ask the question quite sincerely. I know lots of you read the Washington Examiner: I keep seeing it in your offices. So let me say this as one elected representative to another. If you can't go back to your constituents with a better system than this one, they won't want to hear your excuses.

Inertia bias is a powerful force in human affairs. Vested interests always grow up around any system. In the case of Obamacare, those vested interests include practitioners, politicians and pharmaceutical corporations. As the months pass, it becomes harder to agree on an alternative. The great economist Milton Friedman called it "the tyranny of the status quo".

It was precisely for this reason that, over the past seven years, I repeatedly warned that, once Obamacare came into effect, it would be like an ineradicable weed – tougher to uproot than you'd imagine possible.