Rand Paul says Obama should apologize to Pope Francis for Obamacare’s contraceptive mandate

The Kentucky senator thinks the president should promise not to spy on Francis, too

Salon.com

Rand Paul says Obama should apologize to Pope Francis for Obamacare’s contraceptive mandate

Obamacare"s True Believers

The Democrats have been going through the five stages of grief on ObamaCare. It started with denial, the insistence that the system was working just fine except for a few glitches on its website. Then there was anger, with a few left-leaning commentators venting their frustration with Obama for dropping the ball on the implementation of ObamaCare.

Now they have moved on to bargaining: maybe the “fixed” website will be just good enough to save the system from total collapse and stave off a grim electoral reckoning for Democrats.

Chances are it won’t; I’ll get to that in a moment. But the big change is this: ObamaCare’s backers have stopped claiming or expecting that the system is going to work well, that it’s going to be easy to use, that it’s going to save everybody money.

They’ve stopped telling us that if we like our plan, we can keep it, and instead they tell us that our old plan was no good, anyway. They’ve stopped telling us that the law is going to save us money and give us free stuff. Instead, the new advertising tagline for ObamaCare adopted by the Department of Health and Human Services is “Forget About the Price Tag.” No, really. They’ve stopped telling us that we’re going to love the law once we find out what’s in it, because—well, because we’re finding out what’s in it.

Given two months to deal with the initial shock, they have successfully lowered their expectations and put their shoulders back beneath the task of defending the law, with all of its problems.

Exhibit A is Margaret Talbot: a writer for The New Yorker who, like me, has had her policy cancelled and now has to pay a lot more. She was initially upset, she writes, but then “I remembered my values”: “the new health-care law exists for the common good, not just the individual consumer…. So yes, I’ll subsidize someone else’s prenatal coverage.”

This guff about “values” is partly a lie. If paying hundreds of extra dollars a month to subsidize poor women’s prenatal care were among Ms. Talbot’s “values,” she would already have been giving money for that cause to a private charity. Your values are the things you actually do voluntarily, not the nice things you would like to think about yourself, or the things you do only when someone forces you. More to the point, her values are not leading her to give her own money to subsidize others. They are leading her to volunteer your money. And my money, and everybody’s money. This is the left’s well-known concept of “compassion”: showing how generous they can be with other people’s money.

It’s awfully magnanimous of her to decide for us what our values are and to back a law that forces us to be true to what she thinks our values ought to be. I would pat her on the back for it, but she’s too busy doing that herself.

Yet there is a note of panic at the end, a premonition of the bad news still to come. She concludes:

“But they had better work out the problems with the ACA; if they don’t, and it doesn’t fulfill its promise of insuring the uninsured, I’m really going to feel like a chump.”

If she’s not certain of that, then what the hell was the rest of the piece about? Her “values,” apparently, don’t prompt her to examine whether the sacrifice she’s volunteering us for actual ends up benefiting anyone.

Because if she did, she would find plenty of evidence that it won’t.

The ObamaCare website fixes don’t really fix anything. The site still can’t handle enough traffic, not enough to meet the targets necessary to sustain the new government-sponsored insurance markets. Even when the site works on the front end, the electronic forms sent to insurers, which are the real guts of the system, are still not reliable. The payment system that funnels money from customer to insurers is not even built yet, much less tested. The result is that a substantial number of people may think they have purchased insurance under ObamaCare, only to find out on January 1 that they haven’t. And that’s not to mention the tens of millions of additional people who are about to be kicked off of their insurance and find out that they are forced to pay more on the government exchanges, if they can obtain any coverage at all.

So there is every reason to believe that this law will ending up kicking millions of people off their existing insurance and leave them stranded. There is now a good chance that on January 1, when the law’s new coverage is supposed to come into effect, the number of people who are uninsured will actually increase.

But I have no doubt that when this happens, a hard core of ObamaCare’s supporters will adjust. They will “remember their values.” The new health-care law exists for the common good, not “just” the individual, so it’s OK if no actual individual benefits from it.

Ayn Rand knew all about this kind of collectivist reasoning, and she described it this way:

“‘The good of others’ is a magic formula that transforms anything into gold…. Your standard of virtue is not an object, not an act, not a principle, but an intention. You need no proof, no reasons, no success, you need not achieve in fact the good of others–all you need to know is that your motive was the good of others, not your own. Your only definition of the good is a negation.”

I describe this as the Milton Factor: the advocates of government control would rather rule in Hell than leave us the hell alone. History shows that socialism’s true believers will ride the system all the way down. They start by saying, as an HHS official notoriously declared, that they hope they aren’t creating a “Third World experience.” But they don’t blink when they end up in the Third World, or worse. (What’s worse? See Michael Totten’s latest on the living ruins of Havana, a once-prosperous city ridden down into the Third World and below by every Western socialist’s favorite regime.)

This is what the left means by their “values”: what matters to them isn’t whether anyone benefits; it’s that we all sacrifice. It’s not whether the little guy actually gets pulled up; it’s about making sure that everyone above him gets pulled down.

So over the next year, take a good look around. As the ObamaCare disaster continues to unfold, notice how the left will rally and continue to defend it, no matter how bad it gets.

They will remember their values—and so should the rest of us. I hope we remember it for a long time. 

RealClearPolitics – Articles

Obamacare"s True Believers

Obamacare"s haves and have-nots

Medicaid gaps are the remnants of political and legal battles that eroded the ACA. | AP Photo

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.— April Gomez-Rodriguez hopes Obamacare changes her life.

Daniel Hughes says it’s like the health law never happened.

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The difference between them: one state border.

Rodriguez and Hughes are both uninsured. They don’t get coverage through their low-wage jobs, but they don’t qualify for traditional Medicaid. There’s no way they can afford to purchase health insurance on their own.

(POLITICO’s full Obamacare coverage)

But Gomez-Rodriguez, 32, who works with kids at a behavioral health center, lives in New Mexico, where Gov. Susana Martinez was among the first in the GOP to embrace the Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act. On Jan.1, Gomez-Rodriguez and her husband will have health coverage for the first time in years.

Hughes, 40, who works in home repair, lives in Texas, where Gov. Rick Perry’s staunch opposition to Medicaid expansion and other key elements of Obamacare shut him out.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Obamacare was supposed to create a health care safety net from coast to coast, across income levels, putting everyone within reach of health coverage. But in some states, there’s a gaping hole. In half the states, millions of poor people are left out.

Those gaps weren’t part of the law that Congress passed and President Barack Obama signed in 2010. They are the wreckage of the years of political and legal battles which eroded some of the original promises of Obamacare.

(Also on POLITICO: Obamacare figures leave a lot unsaid)

The Affordable Care Act required all states to expand people up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level – about $ 15,000 for a single person, about $ 31,000 for a family of four. The federal government would have paid the bill entirely for the first three years, and then gradually phased back to a 90 percent contribution.

The Supreme Court changed that. In a 7-2 ruling last year, the court found that it was unconstitutional to require the states to expand Medicaid. It had to be optional. More than half of the nation’s governors have decided not to expand or are leaning in that direction. In an odd quirk of how the law works in the states that opt out, people who are just a tad over the poverty line — from 100 to 133 percent of poverty — can go into the new exchanges and get a subsidized health insurance policy. But the poorest – those under 100 percent of poverty, whom the laws’ authors thought they had protected with Medicaid — have nothing.

Texas is the largest of the 26 states to not expand. As the health law rolls out this month, 5 million low-income Americans like Hughes are left with nothing, according to estimates from the Kaiser Family Foundation.

(POLITICO’s guide to the Affordable Care Act)

“You can just cheer all over the United States for everyone else but not for me, because I don’t get this opportunity that everybody has worked so hard for,” says Daniel’s wife, Dena Hughes, 44. “Philosophically, [the law] is great. But right here on the street of Texas, it’s not that big of a difference.”

Hughes just started a new home repair business. It’s hard for him to know exactly what his family will earn, but he estimates it will be just above or below $ 31,590— the income requirement for a family of six to get tax subsidies next year. If he’s below it, he’ll remain uninsured. If his new business lets him cross over into a slightly higher income bracket, he may be able to get some help in the exchange.

Texas’s Medicaid program is among the most restrictive in the country. Coverage for poor adults is almost non-existent because the income requirements are so low – about $ 4,000 per year for a family of three. Perry said repeatedly that he was skeptical of expanding Medicaid because of the federal promise to pay the Medicaid expansion bill. He said he feared the feds would cut and run, leaving the states with an enormous bill.

(WATCH: Health care: What Obama said, why it mattered)

But other governors like Martinez thought the feds were offering a good deal. In New Mexico, expansion will cover some 170,000 people in a state that has a big problem with coverage despite a large Medicaid program. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, New Mexico’s Medicaid program covers 22 percent of its population, the fourth highest rate in the country. Even with that help, about one in five people in New Mexico is uninsured, the third highest uninsurance rate in the country.

POLITICO – TOP Stories

Obamacare"s haves and have-nots

ObamaCare"s Original Sin

Democrats tell us that ObamaCare is “the law of the land,” and that the Supreme Court declared it constitutional, and that we should get used to it — it’s here to stay. Actually, the Court found ObamaCare unconstitutional on two counts, but let it pass anyway.

The problem for defenders of ObamaCare is that its court challenges just keep coming. One place to check up on them is the website Health Care Lawsuits. In September, the American Enterprise Institute ran an article by Chris Conover headlined “Will the Courts Derail Obamacare?” The article covers several of the ongoing court challenges to ObamaCare, including the status of each case. (The article also ran at Forbes.)

On October 5, National Review ran a terrific article by former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy that addresses a specific legal challenge:

It is not just that the intensely unpopular Obamacare was unconstitutional as fraudulently portrayed by the president and congressional Democrats who strong-armed and pot-sweetened its way to passage. It is that Obamacare is unconstitutional as rewritten by Roberts. It is a violation of the Origination Clause — not only as I have expansively construed it, but even under Matt’s narrow interpretation of the Clause. [...] The Clause requires that tax bills must originate in the House of Representatives. Obamacare did not.

McCarthy refers to the individual mandate, which Justice Roberts “rewrote” as a tax. However, the Senate bill that became ObamaCare had several other taxes, such as the tax on medical devices, before Roberts ever got to the law.

Another take on the Origination Clause issue was expressed in April at American Thinker by Daniel Smyth, editor of LibertyBlog. Smyth argues that “according to the Origination Clause, the Senate can’t amend any House bill, whether a bill for raising revenue or not, with the ‘gut-and-amend’ procedure.” In other words, the Senate’s tactic (of replacing in its entirety the text of a House bill) is itself unconstitutional.

On October 24, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit will hear an appeal in Sissel v. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services to decide whether ObamaCare violates the Origination Clause of the Constitution. Back in March, Valerie Richardson in the Washington Times opined:

The challenge citing the Origination Clause isn’t the only lawsuit against Obamacare, but it is the only one that has the potential to wipe out the entire act in one fell swoop. Other claims, notably the freedom-of-religion cases dealing with the birth control requirement, nibble at the fringes but would leave the law largely intact.

Back in 2012, American Thinker ran at least two articles that touched on the Origination Clause as it relates to ObamaCare (here and here).

Also in 2012, Volokh Conspiracy ran an article by Randy Barnet: “New Obamacare Challenge: The Origination Clause.” Barnet’s article is well worth reading. The article quotes from the press release of Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF) on their case, the aforementioned Sissel v. HHS. In addition to relief on the Origination Clause issue, Sissel seeks clarification on an issue that has bugged me:

In addition to the Origination Clause argument, our new complaint asks the court to explain what parts of Chief Justice John Roberts’ June 28 opinion are binding precedent and which are not. Legal scholars — and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, in a recent opinion — have expressed confusion about what parts of the decision qualify as law, and what parts are simply Chief Justice Roberts’ personal views, or what lawyers call “obiter dictum.” We’ve asked the judge to declare that Roberts’ ruling about the Individual Mandate — that it exceeds Congress’ authority under the Commerce Clause — is indeed the law of the land, since it was joined by four other justices. [Link added.]

Since June, the Obama Administration has been spinning the Supreme Court’s decision as if it had won the case and upheld the Individual Mandate. In fact, that did not happen.

That’s gratifying to read, because not only the Obama Administration but the whole lapdog media still refer to the individual mandate as though it had survived. Perhaps a little formal clarification from the high court will put the matter to rest.

I was disappointed when President Obama unilaterally delayed ObamaCare’s employer mandate; I wanted the law to go into effect, so that Americans could see his unwieldy, unworkable behemoth for what it is. Unlike the government shutdown, which he’s trying to make as painful as he can, Obama is trying to postpone ObamaCare’s pain with his delay of the employer mandate. Obama is buying time; hoping to run out the clock; get past the next election.

In the ongoing dispute over the government shutdown, the budget C.R., and the debt ceiling, conservatives, libertarians, and the Tea Party should stay focused on the long-term: winning in 2014 and 2016. To undo all the damage that Democrats have done to America, we must replace them. ObamaCare is just one of those harms, and the Court might give us relief with Sissel.

One potential pitfall for Sissel is how the case is argued. If the lawyers for PLF make too much of how Justice Roberts “rewrote” the bill, it could embarrass the Court. It might be best to tread lightly there. Besides, ObamaCare was a tax bill from the get-go.

There were two big victories in NFIB v. Sebelius for which we should be thankful; it put a limit on the Commerce Clause and the States won big on federalism. One of the things Sissel may accomplish is to lock in those victories. (That is, if Supreme Court decisions still hold sway in “post-constitutional America.”)

Sissel vs. HSS has the potential to be a landmark case. We “right-wingers” all need to get behind it. The question remaining: Are there enough originalists on the Court to reinstall the Origination Clause?

Jon N. Hall is a programmer/analyst from Kansas City.

American Thinker

ObamaCare"s Original Sin

Obamacare"s Day 2 message: Forget Washington

Ironically, Obamacare appears to be benefiting from the government shutdown. | AP Photo

If there’s one message coming out of the White House about the Obamacare sign-up period, it’s this: Forget Washington.

While the nation’s capital remains in shutdown mode, lost in a seemingly hopeless partisan clash over whether the rest of the government’s operations and its creditworthiness should be held captive to the health care law, the administration’s six-month window to “enroll America” enters Day Two on Wednesday.

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After a series of first-day foul-ups that dominated media coverage Tuesday, White House officials say they’re focused on reaching outside the D.C. echo chamber to make sure folks who are eligible — and mandated — to purchase health insurance through state-by-state virtual marketplaces get themselves on the rolls of the new safety-net program.

(Also on POLITICO: Understanding Obamacare guide)

That will include a heavy dose of Twitter and celebrity endorsements, according to Tara McGuinness, the White House point person for Obamacare communications.

“The administration will kick off a national #GetCovered Day of Action — where American citizens, community leaders, artists and mayors will be encouraged to take to social media to spread the word about getting covered,” she wrote in an email to reporters. “Throughout the entire day, the #GetCovered hashtag will be seen by millions of Americans and provide an opportunity to share information, pictures and video with their friends, neighbors and fans.”

Actresses Alyssa Milano and Kerry Washington, and singer John Legend are among the celebrities who have agreed to promote the law to their fans, according to Reuters.

President Barack Obama and his aides have acknowledged that it may take some time for the enrollment process to work smoothly. Consumers were beset Tuesday by long wait times online, error messages, and blank drop-down boxes on Internet sign-up forms. The hybrid system of state and federal administration of the program created uneven experiences for people in different parts of the country, with some signing up easily and others unable to access websites or complete the enrollment process.

“Like every new law, every new product roll out, there are going to be some glitches in the signup process along the way that we will fix,” Obama said in the Rose Garden Tuesday.

Ironically, Obamacare appears to be benefiting from a government shutdown staged over GOP demands that Obama agree to defund it or delay its implementation. Republican lawmakers spent much of Tuesday arguing over a path forward on funding the government’s basic operations and whether to refuse to raise the nation’s debt limit — which the Treasury Department says will be breached later this month without congressional action. That robbed them of the opportunity to make political hay over the first-day glitches in the system.

“I do sort of regret that this message is getting confused with the rollout,” Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) told POLITICO. “It’s going to be a disaster for consumers,” he said, but “I’m afraid less attention may be paid to it.”

In that way, the fiscal showdown consuming the political class provides cover for the White House to run its enrollment campaign without full-scale interference from the small but significant corps of congressional Republicans who say the law is an abomination. There’s also an inherent risk for Republicans who choose to bash the law amid the budget crisis: Many of their constituents simply want information on how to get the new insurance subsidies.

Still, the White House has its work cut out in signing up enough Americans to make the law work as intended. The Department of Health and Human Services reported that 2.8 million people visited the federal Obamacare Website www.healthcare.gov over a 15-hour span on Tuesday, but the number of people who actually enrolled remains a mystery.

McGuinness pointed only to the numbers in Kentucky — the gold standard for state health insurance exchanges so far — where 2,000 people applied for coverage on Tuesday. The figures appeared to be lower in many other states, according to various news accounts.

The White House noted that seven times as many people logged on to the website Tuesday as have ever been on www.medicare.gov at the same time, a measure that may look more robust than it is because people 65 and older — the set eligible for Medicare — don’t appear to have the same affinity for technology as the younger group for whom the Obamacare insurance subsidies are designed.

“Internet use remains strongly correlated with age, educational attainment, and household income,” the Pew Internet and American Life Project reported a week ago. “One of the strongest patterns in the data on Internet use is by age group: 44% of Americans ages 65 and older do not use the Internet, and these older Americans make up almost half (49%) of non-Internet users overall.”

Time is on the administration’s side, though, as consumers have until March 31 to register, and the White House’s Wednesday push has a first-day-of-the-rest-of-Obamacare feel.

“Dozens of influencers with millions of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram followers have committed to be part of the #GetCovered campaign to promote enrollment,” McGuinness wrote. The effort “includes a central hub that will house assets, including signs, social media icons, and other digital assets to share.”

POLITICO – TOP Stories

Obamacare"s Day 2 message: Forget Washington

Obamacare"s Day 2 message: Forget Washington

Ironically, Obamacare appears to be benefiting from the government shutdown. | AP Photo

If there’s one message coming out of the White House about the Obamacare sign-up period, it’s this: Forget Washington.

While the nation’s capital remains in shutdown mode, lost in a seemingly hopeless partisan clash over whether the rest of the government’s operations and its creditworthiness should be held captive to the health care law, the administration’s six-month window to “enroll America” enters Day Two on Wednesday.

Continue Reading

After a series of first-day foul-ups that dominated media coverage Tuesday, White House officials say they’re focused on reaching outside the D.C. echo chamber to make sure folks who are eligible — and mandated — to purchase health insurance through state-by-state virtual marketplaces get themselves on the rolls of the new safety-net program.

(Also on POLITICO: Understanding Obamacare guide)

That will include a heavy dose of Twitter and celebrity endorsements, according to Tara McGuinness, the White House point person for Obamacare communications.

“The administration will kick off a national #GetCovered Day of Action — where American citizens, community leaders, artists and mayors will be encouraged to take to social media to spread the word about getting covered,” she wrote in an email to reporters. “Throughout the entire day, the #GetCovered hashtag will be seen by millions of Americans and provide an opportunity to share information, pictures and video with their friends, neighbors and fans.”

Actresses Alyssa Milano and Kerry Washington, and singer John Legend are among the celebrities who have agreed to promote the law to their fans, according to Reuters.

President Barack Obama and his aides have acknowledged that it may take some time for the enrollment process to work smoothly. Consumers were beset Tuesday by long wait times online, error messages, and blank drop-down boxes on Internet sign-up forms. The hybrid system of state and federal administration of the program created uneven experiences for people in different parts of the country, with some signing up easily and others unable to access websites or complete the enrollment process.

“Like every new law, every new product roll out, there are going to be some glitches in the signup process along the way that we will fix,” Obama said in the Rose Garden Tuesday.

Ironically, Obamacare appears to be benefiting from a government shutdown staged over GOP demands that Obama agree to defund it or delay its implementation. Republican lawmakers spent much of Tuesday arguing over a path forward on funding the government’s basic operations and whether to refuse to raise the nation’s debt limit — which the Treasury Department says will be breached later this month without congressional action. That robbed them of the opportunity to make political hay over the first-day glitches in the system.

“I do sort of regret that this message is getting confused with the rollout,” Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) told POLITICO. “It’s going to be a disaster for consumers,” he said, but “I’m afraid less attention may be paid to it.”

In that way, the fiscal showdown consuming the political class provides cover for the White House to run its enrollment campaign without full-scale interference from the small but significant corps of congressional Republicans who say the law is an abomination. There’s also an inherent risk for Republicans who choose to bash the law amid the budget crisis: Many of their constituents simply want information on how to get the new insurance subsidies.

Still, the White House has its work cut out in signing up enough Americans to make the law work as intended. The Department of Health and Human Services reported that 2.8 million people visited the federal Obamacare Website www.healthcare.gov over a 15-hour span on Tuesday, but the number of people who actually enrolled remains a mystery.

McGuinness pointed only to the numbers in Kentucky — the gold standard for state health insurance exchanges so far — where 2,000 people applied for coverage on Tuesday. The figures appeared to be lower in many other states, according to various news accounts.

The White House noted that seven times as many people logged on to the website Tuesday as have ever been on www.medicare.gov at the same time, a measure that may look more robust than it is because people 65 and older — the set eligible for Medicare — don’t appear to have the same affinity for technology as the younger group for whom the Obamacare insurance subsidies are designed.

“Internet use remains strongly correlated with age, educational attainment, and household income,” the Pew Internet and American Life Project reported a week ago. “One of the strongest patterns in the data on Internet use is by age group: 44% of Americans ages 65 and older do not use the Internet, and these older Americans make up almost half (49%) of non-Internet users overall.”

Time is on the administration’s side, though, as consumers have until March 31 to register, and the White House’s Wednesday push has a first-day-of-the-rest-of-Obamacare feel.

“Dozens of influencers with millions of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram followers have committed to be part of the #GetCovered campaign to promote enrollment,” McGuinness wrote. The effort “includes a central hub that will house assets, including signs, social media icons, and other digital assets to share.”

POLITICO – TOP Stories

Obamacare"s Day 2 message: Forget Washington

Obamacare"s hurdles higher than Medicare"s

Political opposition to Obamacare is still as strong as ever. | AP Photo | AP Photo

President Barack Obama says he’s not worried that all the Obamacare fights will kill the law — because people fought the creation of Medicare and Social Security too, and now they’re more popular than ever.

Democrats have always wanted to believe Obamacare would follow the same pattern: Opponents tried to block passage of the new programs, but once they became law, the public saw the benefits and the opposition faded away.

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But this time there’s a difference. Political opposition to Obamacare is still as strong as ever, more than three years after it was signed into law.

That means the administration’s task in launching the health care law — the biggest new social program since the creation of Medicare in 1965 — is harder than anything its predecessors had to face.

(PHOTOS: 25 unforgettable Obamacare quotes)

Between now and Oct. 1, the Obama administration has to get ready to enroll millions of people, just as Lyndon Johnson’s administration did during the rollout of Medicare. And it has to put the infrastructure in place and make sure the health care industry is ready to participate, just as Johnson’s people did.

But on top of all that, Obamacare has a huge extra layer of political hurdles LBJ didn’t have to worry about like battling Congress for money, persuading Republican governors and legislatures to go along, and quieting the well-funded outside groups.

Republicans insist that this is what Obama and the Democrats signed up for when they decided to push ahead without Republican votes. “It’s very short-sighted to think you can do something this big on a partisan basis,” said Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas). “At some point, you’re going to need bipartisan support for the implementation.”

Democrats insist that they tried to win GOP support — especially Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, who spent months trying to negotiate a compromise with Senate Republicans — and they wouldn’t bite.

(Also on POLITICO: TOP 5 complaints about Obamacare)

They also say it’s hardly the first time a major health program was created by one party. The Medicare prescription drug program, created under the George W. Bush administration, passed Congress in 2003 almost entirely with Republican votes, including a pre-dawn House vote that was held open for nearly three hours while GOP leaders twisted arms.

And Obama administration officials don’t buy the comparison to either program. The real model for Obamacare, they say, is the Massachusetts health reform law — the one signed by Mitt Romney. It inspired the structure of Obama’s health care law, and it’s now so popular in that state that repeal isn’t even a remote possibility.

But at least one veteran of the launch of Medicare — Joseph Califano, one of LBJ’s top domestic aides at the time — isn’t too surprised with the fallout of the decision to move ahead on Obamacare without GOP support.

Even though LBJ had huge Democratic majorities in 1965, he insisted that “we have to shoot for half the Republican votes, because if we don’t, they’ll drive us crazy — they’ll kill us on appropriations, they’ll kill us with the Republican governors,” recalls Califano, now the founder and chairman emeritus of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. It was a different GOP back then, but LBJ still managed to win half of the House Republicans and nearly half of the Senate Republicans.

(Also on POLITICO: Obama: GOP trying to ‘gum up’ ACA)

“I don’t know if Obama’s problem was the incalcitrance of the Republicans or his inexperience — probably both,” said Califano. But whatever the reason for the failure to get Republican buy-in, he said, “they’ve got a hell of a difficult couple of years ahead.”

One Obama administration official acknowledged that the ongoing Republican resistance is “unprecedented, and it creates new challenges.” But the political mood is very different in the states that are trying to implement it, the official said, and there will be “enormous successes” in the states that give the law a genuine effort — “and there will be many of those,” citing California, Maryland, New York and Nevada.

But former administration officials acknowledge that the Obama administration never anticipated the battles would drag on this long. One said the view within the administration was that, once the Supreme Court upheld the law last year, “it would be a new environment” and the law would become more accepted.

The congressional fights are an enormous problem. Obama needs Congress to drum up money for the Department of Health and Human Services and the Internal Revenue Service for next year. He’s has asked for $ 1.5 billion for staffing and other needs. But the Republicans are facing strong pressure within their ranks — including the high-profile voices of Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz — to cut off the funding even if it means a government shutdown this fall.

(Also on POLITICO: Liberal groups fight anti-Obamacare tour)

But that’s only the beginning of the problems. House Speaker John Boehner has promised to hold more votes to chip away at the law, even after the House has already held 40 votes to roll back some or all of it. And the investigations and hearings will continue in the House, pouncing on everything that goes wrong with the law — including the latest problems with the “data hub” for checking people’s eligibility for coverage, which has had so many delays it’s not clear it will be ready for prime time on Oct. 1.

The data hub, which is supposed to allow real-time checks of an Obamacare customer’s income and other information, is one example of a logistical problem that will get an even harsher spotlight because of the ongoing Republican resistance. A recent report by the HHS inspector general’s office said that because of all the delays, the official security authorization for the hub is now expected on Sept. 30 — one day before enrollment begins.

POLITICO – TOP Stories

Obamacare"s hurdles higher than Medicare"s