King v. Burwell

I gotta' get this one out of the way before posting the fun one I intended to.  This is just what I've got on my mind after listening to the news this morning, and I've got to say it to get it off my mind.

I try to be fair about politics.  I try to recognize that people are not generally stupid.  They make what they believe to be the best available choices given the information and circumstances they have to work with.

Even today's absurd Supreme Court case over Obamacare.  We all know that subsidies were intended to be given  to anyone in the US who needed them to afford health insurance.  That was one of the basic assumptions of the whole individual mandate debate.  We can (and should, IMO) continue to debate the specific parameters of "need" and "afford" ... but to try and argue that the law intentionally shut out people in states that opted to use the Federal exchange is absolutely absurd.  Republicans are totally grasping at straws.

Even still, I recognize that the parties on the Republican side of the case are simply representing their constituents.  They have a responsibility to try whatever they can, even just dumb procedural moves, to achieve what their constituents want to have done.  I would expect Democrats to do the same were the roles reversed and a law I found offensive was championed and passed by Republicans.

Having said that.  At some point don't you just have to admit that you lost this one, man?  Obamacare isn't going away.  I think we can all agree it's not perfect.  We live in an imperfect world, run by imperfect human beings just trying to do their best.  We're not going to get a perfect law.  Couldn't your time be better spent working with your fellow Congressmen (maybe even find common ground with someone across the aisle, crazy as that sounds) to improve Obamacare rather than trying, and failing, time after time after time after time after ... you get the idea ... to repeal or somehow ruin the law wholesale?