Every health and economic policy wonk says that Obamacare is working well, and if it's provided subsidies or Medicaid to millions of Americans that didn't previously have healthcare, it's obviously a good thing. But at the same time it still feels like an unwieldy mechanism and the sudden panic regarding the compliance reporting during tax filing says to me that they still haven't really thought everything through. That's probably perfectly normal for a new major government program, but in a world where you're facing outright opposition from Congress, state governments, and the Supreme Court, it seems pretty dangerous. It's also worth noting that "everybody gets Medicare" might have caused different kinds of complications, but it would have avoided the surprise tax fees and would have rendered the state government obstruction and Supreme Court challenges moot.

At a minimum, i hope that if Democrats ever gain non-filibuster proof control of Congress again, they learn a lesson from this. It seems to me you ought to have two options in the form of two different bills. The bi-partisan consensus building Rube Goldberg version (which is what the current law was, regardless of how Republicans voted) that you will pass if the opposition will drop its filibuster and support the law, and the "extreme" but simple version that you'll pass via reconciliation if the opposition won't.