The right doesn’t want Obamacare fixed. But it’s even worse for them if it fails.

By Ezra Klein, WashPost, Updated: October 21, 2013

The launch of the Affordable Care Act's federally run, online insurance portals has been a bit of a disaster. But it's not a disaster that actually does much for the GOP's case against Obamacare. The fact that the site buckled under overwhelming demand shows some flaws in the digital architecture, sure, but it also shows that there was overwhelming demand. The possible problems in the handshake between the government's computers and the insurance industry's systems are worrying, but they don't have much of an ideological valence.

The core problem for the GOP is that they're complaining about problems they don't actually want fixed. So the criticisms have an oddly self-negating quality: Republicans are furious that more people can't sign up for this law they want to repeal altogether.

Some Republicans have responded to this by wildly exaggerating the claims of Obamacare's critics. Since I've been harshly critical of the law's rollout, I've gained a lot of new fans among the law's opponents. But because my criticisms are oriented toward fixing a law these folks want to repeal, there's been a certain looseness in the way my arguments have been described. Here's Sen. Ted Cruz on Mark Levin's radio show:

There is so much widespread agreement that this thing is a train wreck. You've got Wolf Blitzer on CNN saying the president should delay this for a year. You've got Ezra Klein coming out in The Washington Post saying the president should delay it for a year.

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