Guy Benson from the US: Handful of Senate Republicans Join Democrats to Kill 'Skinny Repeal'

In a stunning turn of events early Friday morning, Senate Republicans failed to garner a simple majority for a so-called 'skinny repeal' bill, widely viewed as their last chance to continue the process of repealing and replacing at least some significant elements of Obamacare.  

The final vote was 49-51, with John McCain, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins helping Democrats kill the bill -- which leadership insisted was merely a vehicle to get to a conference committee with members of the House of Representatives. 

Richard Epstein from the US: Obamacare's Slow Death?

Back in 2010, President Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress took the wrong fork in the road to health care reform. To be sure, the case for some reform was very strong, given that the mixed health care system in the United States provided inferior health care at premium prices for large portions of the population. But identifying a problem does not point the way to the necessary cure. What is needed is a clear theory of what has gone wrong and why.

In this regard, there were two diametrically opposed paths for reform. The first was to double down on failed regulatory and subsidy strategies. The second was to deregulate in an effort to unleash market forces to meet the strong and persistent demand for health care services. Unfortunately, in 2010, the road taken was the former: double down on combining government regulation with government subsidy.

Richard Epstein: The Obamacare Train Wreck

Defunding or repealing the law is practically impossible, but here’s how we can fix it.

It is now common knowledge that the bugs in the Obamacare website have been embedded in the system from the start. For the past two weeks, not only have many individuals found it impossible to access the website, but they are often frozen in place once they pass through the initial portal. The problems will just get worse. The current law requires extensive communications between enrollees and their chosen insurance carriers, as well as massive interaction with both federal and state organizations. As a result, web traffic builds up behind bottlenecks and leads to massive frustration. As I warned last May, watching Obamacare unravel is a painful business.