What's the Rush to Kill Obamacare?

For seven years, Republicans have yearned to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. Now that they have the chance, they seem wholly unprepared to do it right. Much work is still needed to figure out how to avoid destabilizing the health-insurance system. Yet, in their hurry, leaders in Congress seem to want to skip that part. What’s the rush?

Republicans are allowing themselves just three weeks to develop a budget bill that would scuttle Obamacare -- ending the tax penalties on people who don’t have insurance, and scrapping insurance premium subsidies for low-income Americans. Presumably, some or all of the funding to states that have expanded Medicaid coverage under Obamacare would also be cut. Congressional leaders intend to thus lay the groundwork for those changes but then avoid actually making them for two or three years -- during which they promise to think up a better system.