It doesn't have to die. I don't think Obama will just pack up. Rather than setting up a NASA-inspired command and control center, we can understand and accept building blocks. Mandatory community rated pools with insurers selling across state lines. Tax vouchers and credits to indivuduals with tax benfits to themselves, bit their employers. Federal subsidies of state high risk pools, if we can't get agreement on rules to get them into the larger community ratings.

None of this helps Medicare which needs to be fixed, but that part of the plan wasn't being sold honestly.

It didn't need to be this complicated to be effective. People didn't believe the federal government could make good on all promises, especially when their promises changed so much over time, for "political realities," as if the ideas and plans didn't have cohesiveness.