My must read of the day is "Dems still haven't learned Obamacare lesson," in Politico:
Memo to Democrats: This is what happens when you pass a law where you can’t fix simple drafting errors.
Within hours of each other, two federal courts reached exactly opposite conclusions Tuesday about whether the vague wording of Obamacare allows people to get subsidies through the federal health insurance exchange. One said, sorry, that’s not what the law says. The other said, sure, they can get the subsidies — the Obama administration has the power to do that. […]
It’s all because of what most Democrats insist is a drafting error in the law, but it’s kind of a big one. The federal health insurance marketplace is now serving 36 states that couldn’t or wouldn’t set up their own exchanges.
Remember the defense when millions of people lost their health insurance: there was a provision change in 2010, so when we first made the statement that people could keep their insurance, it was accurate. But then everyone said, "Actually you made that promise many times after the provision was changed." The administration was either knowingly lying or they were so incompetent that over the course of three years not one person in the administration noticed that the provision had been changed.
It's a similar instance here, and it fits into the larger narrative of incompetency when it comes to the Affordable Care Act—from the website to the false promises to the "drafting error."
If you accept the administration defense, that it is simply a drafting error, then they are inept and didn't notice it, or they were irresponsible and chose to accept whatever so long as the bill was passed. The idea that chalking it up to a mistake makes this something people should overlook is illogical. A mistake makes it worse and adds to a list of incompetent mistakes. Any way you look at this, it doesn't help the administration.