Since you're here, read this

I don't usually post excerpts without comment, but...I feel like Jon Favreau has told basically the whole story of U.S. politics of the last five years with his piece, The GOP is Terrified Obamacare Could be a Success. It lays bare the bad faith, the all-in commitment to misinformation, the callousness and cruelty of today's GOP.  It makes my heart sing, so I'm going to carry my bucket of water to the ocean of Favreau's readership and say: read it:

But here’s my question: if Republicans are so confident Obamacare will end badly, why not just shut up about it? It’s not like they have the votes to repeal the law—a math problem they still haven’t solved after 37 different tries. Their appeal to the Supreme Court ended in defeat at the hands of a conservative chief justice. And now the bulk of the plan will begin to take effect in just a few months.

At this point, why not sit back and wait for this crazy experiment to self-destruct? Why not let President Obama and the Democrats reckon with the millions of angry Americans who will undoubtedly hate their new insurance or their new insurance protections?

Because Republicans are terrified that Obamacare could actually work.
Already, the law has provided 54 million Americans free access to preventive services like check-ups and mammograms. More than six million seniors have saved more than six billion dollars on their prescriptions. Nearly 13 million consumers have received more than one billion dollars in rebates from insurance companies that had overcharged them. There are more than three million happy young adults who have been allowed to stay on their parents’ health insurance until they turn 26. And in California, a state that represents one-fifth of the U.S. economy, we’ve learned that premiums for the law’s new insurance options have come in lower­ than expected.

As these successes build, Republicans are naturally coping with their fear the only way they know how: by scaring the hell out of everyone else. The Koch brothers, not content with the millions they flushed down the toilet on Karl Rove’s 2012 electoral strategy, are spending millions more on ads that tell the same previously debunked lies about the health-care law. Mitch McConnell, still pursuing his top legislative priority of defeating a president who can no longer be defeated, actually threatened the NFL for even considering the administration’s request to help educate uninsured Americans about the fact that they can now receive affordable coverage under the law.