Democrats can at least thank Trump for keeping their name off ObamaCare's death certificate. Painful as Trump's victory proved, it gives them the opportunity to blame him — and absolve themselves — for ObamaCare's seemingly fatal flaws.However, despite their claims, ObamaCare's demise was self-inflicted; the poorly designed, implemented and patronized system is killing itself.

In 2016, ObamaCare was failing and Clinton was winning. Despite virtual certainty Hillary would win in November, Democrats faced the reality that ObamaCare was fatally foundering(coverage declining and premiums skyrocketing) and saving it meant working with a Republican Congress bent on killing it. Without massive changes — most of them expensive — Democrats faced Obama's failure landing on Clinton's doorstep.
If there were a silver lining to Democrats' dark cloud of defeat in Trump's upset, it was being spared having to sign the coroner's report on ObamaCare. Trump even played into this blame-shifting by reducing its advertising and sign-up periods. Where Democrats once had a problem they could neither escape nor fix, with Trump's sudden upset, their problem became his.
However before revision becomes history, we should remember reality. A Congressional Budget Office report released just last month shows where ObamaCare was — and more importantly, where it was not going — before Trump even took office.
CBO estimated in 2013 that ObamaCare would have 7 million enrollees in 2014, 13 million in 2015, and 22 million in 2016.  Actual 2016 enrollment came in at just 11 million — half of CBO's earlier estimate. Four-fifths of that shortfall came in the estimate for subsidized enrollees — those for whom the government was making some premium payment.
Conversely, CBO underestimated how much ObamaCare's expansion of Medicaid would cost. In 2013, it estimated that ObamaCare's Medicaid tab would be $9 billion in 2014, $24 billion in 2015, and $44 billion in 2016. Instead, it amounted to significantly more — $23 billion in 2014, $57 billion in 2015, and $65 billion in 2016.
And this happened in spite of ObamaCare's Medicaid enrollment being lower than projected — spiraling per patient spending more than made up the difference.
Finally, CBO projected that ObamaCare would cause the uninsured population to plummet. In 2013, it estimated that America's uninsured population would drop by 23 million. Actual 2016 figures show it dropping just 16 million, over one third less than projected.
CBO's review of actual data shows that ObamaCare had enrolled half the amount projected, its Medicaid expansion was proving far more expensive per patient than expected, and the drop in overall uninsured was well below projections.
As Doug Badger of the Galen Institute pointed out, ObamaCare's enrollment figures were ready to drop further. Although the individual mandate — ObamaCare's requirement that individuals buy insurance or pay a penalty — had proven wildly unsuccessful in forcing people to buy coverage, its impact was about to fall further still.
The reason: ObamaCare coverage was proving so costly that the penalty no longer applied to increasing numbers. And as ObamaCare coverage costs shot up still more, more and more were going to be exempt from the penalty. The result: Enrollments would fall further behind projections.
As Badger stated in National Review, "the individual mandate (was) repealing itself."  The same thing can be said about ObamaCare overall.
It is important to remember that all these failures were occurring while Obama was still in office. And they were going to continue occurring because of flaws in ObamaCare's design — not because of anything Trump — who still was not elected, let alone in office — did.  Even the subsidies Trump has promised to cut off will not take effect until (later in) 2018 — two years after the failing results CBO found.
Far from killing ObamaCare, Trump inherited the task of burying it. As CBO showed, ObamaCare was killing ObamaCare. And it was doing it faster and more effectively than Republicans have proven capable of. And well before Trump even got the chance.
  • Young served under President George W. Bush as director of communications in the Office of Management and Budget and as deputy assistant secretary in legislative affairs for tax and budget at the Treasury Department. He was a congressional staffer from 1987-2000.