Obamacare: Mend it, Don’t End it

by Joe Klein,

The Affordable Care Act has problems. But the GOP campaign to junk it is now finished.

The endless, blindingly obtuse debate about the Affordable Care Act–also known as Obamacare–has been almost entirely about politics, not substance. There are two reasons for this. We haven’t had much real substance to go on. And politics is a lot easier for us wizards of the media to report and opine upon. The abysmal debut of the HealthCare.gov website is a lot easier to comprehend–government can’t tie its own shoelaces–than the heroic efforts to bring the site back to life. The people who “lost” their insurance because of new coverage requirements are more famous than those who were able to get better, cheaper coverage through the new government health care markets. (Actually, they’re many of the same people.) The fact that 7.1 million people signed up for insurance is more important than who they actually are: Were they uninsured in the past? Will they pay their bills? Will they get the care they’re paying for? Will the system be able to handle all the new traffic?

But we have now turned a corner. the system is up and running. It has 7.1 million customers (plus 4.5 million more in the expanded Medicaid program). The word of mouth seems to be … not bad: a recent ABC News–Washington Post poll actually had more Americans in favor of Obamacare than opposed to it, by an overpowering 49% to 48%. Those numbers may well improve over time as the public learns that the program isn’t the socialist cataclysm that Republicans predicted. It may even happen by November. It is not impossible that Americans will be pleased that a significant social injustice has been rectified: the hardworking poor finally have health care protection, just as the indigent on Medicaid have had. Indeed, there is one political thing that we know for sure: the Republicans have lost this debate substantively. The law won’t be repealed. “There is no off switch.

Which doesn’t mean the Affordable Care Act doesn’t need reform. It is a slovenly piece of legislation that will need constant modification and in some cases structural overhaul. The very notion that there are 50 stories here demonstrates a glaring inefficiency.

A recent Kaiser family foundation poll shows that 59% of Americans want to see this program improved, not repealed–another reason the Republicans have lost this debate. There are legitimate arguments against government expansion, but the Republicans haven’t been making them. Instead they’ve resorted to fear tactics (remember “death panels”), demagoguery (socialism!), concocted bad-news stories and irrelevant bean-counting.

But no. John Boehner and other GOP leaders sent a reflexive message to the 7.1 million enrollees: they’re still against it, no retreat, no surrender. That makes political sense in a dull, conventional-wisdom way. Current polls have them winning the House and perhaps the Senate in November. But what happens if Obamacare brings better coverage to millions of Americans between now and then? What happens if the good-news stories start outplaying the bad?

More From TIME Magazine: