OPINION

A Blessing for the GOP

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Let the crisis continue.

Let the standoff between the Democrats and the Republicans over Obamacare drag on for as many weeks or months as necessary to wake up the American people.

Let millions struggle daily to sign up online for the government health care that they -- but not their elected representatives in Congress -- are being forced by their government to buy.

Let the mainstream media continue to blatantly side with their soulmates in the White House and continue, as per usual, to portray the Republicans as the cause of every social ill and political pain in the Republic.

Let each and every American voter -- low-information as well as high-information -- hear over and over again that it is the bad Republicans and conservatives who want to kill Obamacare.

Let all the voters of America be told over and over that it’s the good Democrats and liberals in the mainstream media who are in favor of Obamacare.

Let the national impasse over Obamacare drag on until about, oh, let’s say January.

By then everyone will have had a good, long look at the hard realities -- not the easy promises -- of Obamacare.

By then every American will know that signing up online for the so-called Affordable Care Act was not the only downside, just the first of many downsides in an unfair, ill-begotten government health care scheme that was poorly planned and sloppily launched.

Millions of folks also will know by January that half the promises made by the president to sell Obamacare were lies.

Many of them will have seen their monthly insurance premiums go up 20 or 40 or 100 percent.

Many will have found out, as my wife just did in a letter, that their existing Blue Cross insurance plans have been cancelled and put into a new plan under ObamaCare.

By January every American who has a pulse, a job and a TV will know exactly who was for Obamacare and who was against it.

If Obamacare is living up to the president’s promises and voters are happy with it, Democrats will be the big winners.

They can expect to sweep the House and increase their majority in the Senate in the 2014 elections. And hello, President Hillarycare in 2016.

But if by early next year it’s clear to all but the most fervent Obamaphile on The New York Times editorial board that Obamacare is a total fiasco, Republicans will sweep the elections and take over the Senate.

And that’s exactly the way it should be. The two parties should live or die on the issue of Obamacare.

Republicans with weak knees worry that if they’re blamed for shutting the government down over Obamacare, which the mainstream media will do, they’ll be hurt in 2014.

But I see the Obamacare battle as a blessing for the GOP. For the first time in a long time, America is getting to see the stark difference between the Republican and Democrat parties.

You want “free” socialized medicine and all the coercive strings and stupidities that come with a government bureaucracy? Fine. Vote Democrat in 2014.

You want to get government out of health care, rely on competitive market forces, and be free to choose what level of coverage you get and where you get it? Fine. Vote Republican in 2014.

Voters will have a clear choice next year, and I’m betting the fight over Obamacare is going to backfire for Democrats, not Republicans.

It will help the GOP take the Senate in 2014. And it'll still help in 2016, when Hillarycare Clinton will find herself swept away by a hurricane of angry voters who've finally learned because of Obamacare that there's a real difference between the two parties.