It won't be over when it's over

Even Nancy Pelosi's harshest Republican critics don't doubt her ability to wrangle votes. She has a chance to pass ObamaCare again through the House in a bout of arm-twisting so intense it might violate the Geneva Conventions. If Pelosi succeeds, Democrats will tell themselves they've finally attained a goal that has eluded them since Truman. But it won't be over. In the Iraq War context, it will be the toppling-the-Saddam-Hussein-statue phase of the operation, with more combat still in the offing. If the bill becomes law, it will suffer a legitimacy gap that will make it vulnerable to repeal.

One, it will have passed on strictly partisan votes. Support from the minority party would show that it has the kind of broad, sustainable base of support it now lacks as the spawn of a heedless ideological bender.

Two, its skids were greased with rotten deals. Democrats hope to eliminate the special provisions that have tarred the bill in a separate package of "fixes." That taint, however, can't be undone.

Three, a parliamentary trick is necessary to its final passage. Because Democrats no longer have 60 votes for the bill in the Senate, they have to pass their fixes under "reconciliation," short-circuiting the normal amendment process. Republicans have resorted to reconciliation many times before, although typically on fiscal measures for which the maneuver was originally intended, or on legislation enjoying bipartisan support.

Four, the bill has been sold under deliberately false pretenses. President Barack Obama insists that it will cut the deficit, bend the cost curve down and reduce premiums, when it's likely to do the opposite on all three counts.

Five, the bill is abidingly unpopular. It has been under water, sometimes deeply so, in almost every poll. The Senate election in Massachusetts provided the exclamation point.

Obama's original choice for health care czar, former U.S. Sen. Tom Daschle, warned Democrats long ago that bulldozing reform through on a narrow basis would make it liable to repeal. In the U.S., ObamaCare-style insurance reforms were passed, then fully or partially overturned in Kentucky, New Hampshire and Washington after those states suffered spiraling premiums and insurance-market meltdowns.

So ObamaCare needn't stand forever. Aspects of the bill that take hold immediately - ending lifetime limits on care, etc. - won't have a broad-based effect. The large-scale subsidies for insurance don't kick in until 2014, after myriad tax increases and cuts to the popular Medicare Advantage program. Nothing in the bill will seriously limit the premium increases against which Obama now inveighs.

Reversing any of this won't be easy. Republicans will need 60 votes in the Senate, and Obama will wield his veto in defense. The law's delayed onset will give Republicans breathing room, though. Surely, it won't look any more affordable as the entitlement crunch approaches and the Washington agenda turns to deficit reduction. And Republicans may well have elected a president before it fully takes effect.

T.S. Eliot said "there are no lost causes, because there are no gained causes." Even if it passes, ObamaCare won't be a "gained cause," but a source of unremitting, high-stakes contention.