The Brookings Institution wrote:

Like a general whose panicked troops are ready to flee, president Obama today ordered a tactical retreat to a more defensible position. First there was the dreadful performance of the health exchanges. Then, came the resentment spawned by insurance cancellations. Democratic supporters of the Affordable Care Act, frightened for their political lives and angry on behalf of their constituents, seemed ready to bolt. The House seems certain to pass a bill that effectively repeals the insurance market reforms in the health reform law by permitting insurers indefinitely to continue selling to new customers plans that do not include the Obamacare protections. The prospect was all too real that the Senate would pass a bill only marginally better. A conference committee bill would reach the president’s desk, confronting him with a political Sophie’s choice—he could sign a bill repealing much of his proudest legislative achievement or veto it and risk being overridden.

Either outcome would be damaging both politically and substantively. The glimmer of Democratic political triumph over the debt ceiling and the government closure would turn to dust. Many elements of health reform would be inoperative with no clear course of action open to the administration.

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