Saying good riddance to Obamacare

Long before House Republicans voted on Thursday to repeal and replace Obamacare, the law was falling to pieces.

After forcing millions of middle-class people to find new health plans and health providers, and to pay higher premiums for insurance plans that cover less of their healthcare expenses, Obamacare is now in its fourth year of full operation.

Its drafters and supporters made countless empty and disingenuous promises in 2009 and 2010, but back then had the honesty to admit it had kinks that would take a few years to work out.

By 2017, insurers were supposed to have figured out what to charge to compete in Obamacare's government-run subsidized marketplaces. After all, the program's main safety net for insurers, the risk corridor program, was scheduled to disappear at the end of 2016.

Many insurers have figured it out. They cannot afford to sell health insurance under Obamacare at all. Republicans' repeal vote must be understood in this light. They are not simply repealing a bill whose ideological underpinning they reject. They are tearing down a building that is structurally unsound. They might retail President Obama's refrain from 2009 that the status quo is not an option because the status quo is a broken healthcare system. Thanks, Obama.