McArdle: Resolved: Obamacare is Now Beyond Rescue

"Last Wednesday, Scott Gottlieb and I debated Jonathan Chait and Douglas Kamerow on this proposition: Resolved: Obamacare Is Now Beyond Rescue," writes Megan McArdle.

I was feeling a little trepid, for three reasons: First, I’ve never done any formal debate; second, the resolution gave the “for” side a built-in handicap, as the “against” side just had to prove that Obamacare might not be completely beyond rescue; and third, we were debating on the Upper West Side. Now, I grew up on the Upper West Side and love it dearly. But for this particular resolution, it’s about the unfriendliest territory this side of Pyongyang. [snip] 

Given the various difficulties, we went in assuming that we would lose, so we were pretty surprised and pleased when we won.

What was the winning argument? We argued that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is an unstable program that doesn't deliver what was expected. For a lot of people, that hardly needs proving, given all the recent technical and legal gyrations. But for others, it does, and because most of them weren’t at the debate, let me elaborate...

McArdle provides excellent debate prep for anyone needing it on this issue: the debacle of implementation, the lack of political legitimacy; and (perhaps most frightening) the worst that is yet to come. Well worth reading in its entirety.