As Obamacare continues to make headlines due to exploding premiums and insurance companies dropping out, Democrats are stumbling all over themselves to defend the free-market-busting bridge to a single-payer, government-run healthcare system. Actually, as you’ll see below, calling it a failure isn’t quite correct. But first, a little background.

We knew from the very beginning that Obamacare contained a lot of bad stuff, a fact confirmed on the day Nancy Pelosi famously stated, “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.”

While it’s been sporting to use Nancy’s words to prove that the “P” in Pelosi stands for “pinhead,” little did we realize at the time that she was actually giving us the strategy Democrats planned to use to make the Affordable Care Act the law of the land.

Do you remember the architect of Obamacare, Jonathan Gruber? In a video uncovered in 2014 during the second enrollment period for Obamacare, Gruber was recorded at a healthcare panel where he shared the strategy Pelosi spoke of, and unashamedly admitted that Obamacare would have never passed if not for a bundle of lies:

“You can’t do it political, you just literally cannot do it. Transparent financing and also transparent spending. I mean, this bill was written in a tortured way to make sure CBO did not score the mandate as taxes. If CBO scored the mandate as taxes the bill dies. Okay? So it’s written to do that.

“In terms of risk rated subsidies, if you had a law which said that healthy people are going to pay in, you made explicit healthy people pay in and sick people get money, it would not have passed. Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really really critical to get for the thing to pass. Look, I wish Mark was right that we could make it all transparent, but I’d rather have this law than not.”

Unfortunately, now that the flying fecal matter has hit the rotating blade, Democrats are digging in as they make plans to take Obamacare to the next level.

In other words, if you’re receiving financial assistance from the government, no problem. But if you aren’t receiving assistance because you either don’t qualify or don’t want to rely on the feds, hold on to your pocketbook.

And you might want to hold on to your pocketbook for another reason.

As Gruber expounded on his claim that Obamacare didn’t need a fix–stating that it is “working as planned“–he admitted that the healthcare plan “could work better.” And he concluded with a suggestion that Obamacare needed “a larger mandate penalty” for those who don’t participate. (emphasis mine)

Working as planned? I guess that technically true. After all, it’s always been the deliberate intention of Obamacare to destroy private healthcare in favor of socialized medicine.

Originally posted at The Strident Conservative

David Leach is the owner of The Strident Conservative, your source for opinion that’s politically-incorrect and always “right.” His articles can also be found on RedState.com.

His daily radio commentary is nationally syndicated with Salem Radio Network and can be heard on stations across America.