Jonathan Cohn cheers the survival of Obama's signature accomplishment:
I’ve waited more than two years to write this sentence: The Affordable Care Act is here to stay. It survived the Supreme Court and now it has survived the threat of a unified Republican government determined to repeal it. Implementation of the law will present huge challenges, but, for the first time in a long while, the administration and its allies can focus on those challenges rather than on rearguard political fights to keep the program alive.
Josh Marshall has the same thought:
The most concrete thing that strikes me about this public verdict is that Health Care Reform, Obamacare, a system of near universal coverage that will provide a framework for future reform, is here for good. It withstood the challenge of the conservative judiciary. It survived a national referendum. As Bill Kristol wrote memorably back in late 1993, the reason conservatives fought this so hard is because they knew that once it was in place the public would never let it be taken away. And it won’t. It’s here for good. That alone would seal President Obama’s legacy.
Austin Frakt hopes for further reform:
The only realistic, if still uncertain, way forward for those who find flaws with part or all of the ACA (and I am among them) is to argue for incremental change. Instead of repeal and replace, consider revise and rework. I don’t expect the political climate to change such that this suddenly becomes easy. Repeal may be dead, but Kumbaya is not alive. Still, for the good of the country and those who need and deserve better and more affordable health care, we really ought to try. The people have shown us that we’re a long way from Waterloo. Isn’t it time we all started acting like it?
The Dish 