Health-care reform is Barack Obama's highest-profile achievement — though I'd rank it behind his response to climate change as his most significant — and the one that is most likely to symbolize his success or failure as a president. For that reason, Republicans insisted from the outset that the law was failing: They couldn't fix the website in time, more people would lose insurance than would gain it, medical inflation would skyrocket, and on and on. More recently, two statements have renewed their fervor. First, New York Times reporter Robert Pear published a story headlined “Ailing Obama Health Care Act May Have to Change to Survive.” And second, Bill Clinton was quoted describing the law as a “crazy system.” The right-wing news media have processed these stories as evidence that even liberals admit Obamacare is doomed.
They are evidence of nothing of the sort.
