Resolved: Obamacare Is Now Beyond Rescue

Last Wednesday, Scott Gottlieb and I debated Jonathan Chait and Douglas Kamerow at an Open to Debate formerly known as Intelligence Squared U.S. event on this proposition: ‘Resolved: Obamacare Is Now Beyond Rescue. I was feeling a little trepid, for three reasons: First, I’ve never done any formal debate; second, the resolution gave the ‘for’ side a built-in handicap, as the ‘against’ side just had to prove that Obamacare might not be completely beyond rescue; and third, we were debating on the Upper West Side. Now, I grew up on the Upper West Side and love it dearly. But for this particular resolution, it’s about the unfriendliest territory this side of Pyongyang.