<p>For liberals, it is a cruel twist of history that Harry Truman's dream of universal health coverage, carried forward by generations of committed Democrats, should fall to the Obama administration for its fulfillment.</p>
<p>Barack Obama seems to have adopted this cause in January 2007 as a last-minute speech insert. "We needed something to say," one adviser told Politico. "I can't tell you how little thought was given to that thought other than it sounded good." Eventually, the Affordable Care Act was passed by a partisan vote, draining the law of legitimacy outside the Democratic Party. Over the next three years, Obama proved incapable of explaining Obamacare's virtues and its popularity fell. Then its implementation was entrusted to a Cabinet secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, who gratuitously alienated religious groups and massively bungled the law's rollout.</p>