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United States News Title: Bill Clinton May Have Just Penned ObamaCare's Epitaph I Politics: Who would think the president who proposed HillaryCare would help kill ObamaCare. Bill Clinton just gave congressional Democrats cover to oppose their party's president — and try salvaging their political skins. When New Coke failed back in the 1980s, the Coca-Cola Co. didn't "fix" it; the company swiftly brought back the real Coke, calling it "Coca-Cola Classic." In the end, New Coke was scrapped and the fiasco made consumers appreciate "The Real Thing" that they had taken for granted. ObamaCare can't be "fixed" any more than New Coke could. But the pressure's on for Democrats to get rid of it, even if, like the Coke Co., they must pretend it's not really a failure, and they're not returning to the past. Of all people, ex-President Bill Clinton has come to their rescue. Ozy Media's interview with Clinton sent tremors through Washington on Tuesday, as President Obama's official ObamaCare "explainer in chief" said: "Even if it takes a change to the law, the president should honor the commitment the federal government made" to younger, healthy health insurance beneficiaries "and let 'em keep what they got." But this isn't just self-centered Bill being Bill, as when his convention speech outshone Obama's at last year's convention. Clinton may well be saving incumbent Democratic congressmen and senators from the voters' wrath next year, for which they'll be grateful — both to Bill and to certain 2016 presidential candidate Hillary. What the Democratic Party's elder statesman just did is give congressional Democrats permission to oppose Obama on ObamaCare. It doesn't mean they will explicitly call for repeal, but they now no longer have to be shy about insisting on big legislative changes that could unravel the whole law. Writing in Forbes on the eve of Clinton's remarks, University of Colorado at Boulder presidential scholar Steven Hayward firmly predicted that "ObamaCare is going to be repealed well in advance of next year's election" — even if it's "repeal" by another name. The question is what the political dynamic will be in Congress. With majority control of the House of Representatives, Republicans should wield huge leverage. But Hayward warns that changing the ObamaCare law to drop the individual mandate "could leave us with an unfunded expansion of Medicaid and a badly disrupted private insurance market," something the GOP can avoid through proposing "a serious replacement policy, based on the premium support tax credit ideas that John McCain advocated (poorly) in 2008." There is a much bigger issue, however: Will the Tea Party, and their sizable forces among House Republicans, accept anything less than pure repeal — even if it is a legislative reform that tears the heart out of ObamaCare and will be a big step toward its demise? Will doing nothing — forcing Democrats to sleep in the bed they made for themselves — be an option? Whatever happens, by backing changing the law to fulfill a promise Obama knew he couldn't keep, Bill Clinton may find himself having written ObamaCare's epitaph.
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