Debate: Who didn't kill Obamacare? It's no mystery ...

— Blaming conservatives, Trump signals new openness to Dems — Hope Yen | Associated Press | Salt Lake Tribune

" President Donald Trump on Sunday attacked conservative lawmakers for the failure of the Republican bill to replace former President Barack Obama's health care law, as aides signaled a greater willingness to work with moderate Democrats on upcoming legislative battles from the budget and tax cuts to health care. ..."

— Sen. Mike Lee alone in Utah delegation cheering pulling of GOP health care bill — Courtney Tanner | The Salt Lake Tribune

" ... Lee had led the charge to defeat or significantly alter the American Health Care Act, pressing instead for a more robust overhaul of Obamacare. He saw the bill as a poor compromise. ..."

— Why Obamacare Defeated Trumpcare — Jonathan Chait | Daily Intelligencer­

" ... Conservatives disagree philosophically with the very concept of insurance as most Americans experience it. Insurance means spreading risk, which is a form of redistribution. Republicans postured against Obamacare from the left, denouncing its high deductibles and premiums, and promising a better, cheaper plan that would cover everybody. Their plan, inevitably, did the opposite. All politicians overpromise, of course. But the Republicans did more than overpromise. They delivered a policy directionally opposed to their promises. ..."

— Who Stopped the Republican Health Bill? — Wilson Andrews, Matthew Block and Haeyoun Park | The New York Times

" 33 Republicans who would not budge from their decisions to vote "no" on the health care bill were key to causing its collapse. They can be divided into three broad categories: ..."

Spoiler: None of them was from Utah.

— How Right-Wing Media Saved Obamacare — Conor Friedersdorf | The Atlantic

" ... The point isn't that Obamacare was without flaws, or that no one was pointing them out, but that many of the most-watched conservative entertainers were spreading wild falsehoods rather than cogently explaining the bill's real costs and shortcomings. There were defensible reasons to oppose the law, but many who told pollsters they were against Obamacare had indefensible reasons, in that they were grounded in the wild falsehoods. What's more, on a cable-news network that bills itself as 'fair and balanced,' viewers were seldom given any information about Obamacare's benefits or exposed to any stories of folks who were helped by it. ..."

— Republicans lied about healthcare for years, and they're about to get the punishment they deserve —

Josh Barro | Business Insider

" ... For years, Republicans promised lower premiums, lower deductibles, lower co-payments, lower taxes, lower government expenditure, more choice, the restoration of the $700 billion that President Barack Obama heartlessly cut out of Medicare because he hated old people, and (in the particular case of the Republican who recently became president) "insurance for everybody" that is "much less expensive and much better" than what they have today.

"They were lying. Over and over and over and over, Republicans lied to the American public about healthcare.

"It was impossible to do all of the things they were promising together, and they knew it. ..."

— Donald Trump's belief that Obamacare is "exploding" is false and self-destructive — Matthew Yglesias

" ... But Trump seems, based on his public statements at least, to be sincerely convinced of two things. One is that the failure of Obamacare repeal is okay because the law is doomed anyway. The other is that the doom of the program would be good for him politically, because it would just go to show what a dope Obama was. The former of these beliefs is definitely false — it reflects an apparently serious misunderstanding of the content of the legislation, as well as the nature of recent problems in one part of the program. The second part is probably wrong too. ..."

— Republicans never wanted to kill Obamacare ­ — Michael Cohen | The Boston Globe

" ... For Republicans, repealing Obamacare has always been a talking point and not much else. With little expectation that they would have the legislative opportunity to overturn the law, the GOP railed against the bill as if it was the devil itself. They repeatedly lied to their supporters about the bill. They claimed that it cost people care when it hadn't. They said it increased health care costs when it didn't. And they repeatedly said that repealing it would make American health care better, when it wouldn't. ..."

— Freedom Caucus blows its chance to govern — Marc A. Thiessen | Special to The Washington Post

" ... Freedom Caucus members had a chance to repeal the individual mandate and the employer mandate, transform Medicaid, end $1 trillion in Obamacare taxes, expand health savings accounts and defund Planned Parenthood. Instead, they chose to keep Obamacare intact. ..."

— I miss Mitt Romney — E.J. Dionne | The Washington Post

" ... Romney worked with Democrats to pass the Massachusetts health-care plan which, he explained, was entirely within his party's philosophical wheelhouse: "The Republican approach is to say, 'You know what? Everybody should have insurance. They should pay what they can afford to pay. If they need help, we will be there to help them, but no more free ride.'..."

— A Way Forward — Jamelle Bouie | Slate

What Democrats should do to capitalize on the defeat of Trumpcare.