"As a candidate for president, Barack Obama sold his signature universal health care plan with the promise that it would 'cut the cost of a typical family's premium by up to $2,500 a year.' 

"Now that the Affordable Care Act exchanges are open for business, voters are finding that the biggest problem with ObamacCare is not that some websites crashed last week but that the Obama promise of big savings for the average family was too good to be true. 
 
"Now that the exchanges are open for business, people who already have individual coverage have something new not to like: sticker shock. The Affordable Care Act isn't affordable after all. ... 

"Voters never should have believed that Washington could offer more health care benefits to more people and that it would end up saving families thousands of dollars. It was too good to be true, and now the bill is coming due."

"Congressional Republicans ought to memorize, and preface their every statement with, some simple formula. 'One: Make Congress and the White House obey the same ObamaCare rules you do. Two: Obama let business off for a year; we want workers to be let off for a year too. That’s the GOP plan. What part don’t you like?' 

"Only by hitting the nail on the head again and again and again will Republicans be heard. If you’re locked in a closet at the far end of a deep basement, you need to bang on the door and shout, and keep banging and keep shouting until someone hears you. Subtlety and nuance are not required — only simplicity and persistence. The guy locked in the closet has a strong message, and so does the House GOP. But if no one hears, no one cares."

"The hundreds of thousands of government workers who have been laid off are not idle because the House of Representatives did not vote enough money to pay their salaries or the other expenses of their agencies -- unless they are in an agency that would administer ObamaCare. ... 

"The Senate chose not to vote to authorize that money to be spent, because it did not include money for ObamaCare. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says that he wants a 'clean' bill from the House of Representatives, and some in the media keep repeating the word 'clean' like a mantra. But what is unclean about not giving Harry Reid everything he wants?

"If Senator Reid and President Obama refuse to accept the money required to run the government, because it leaves out the money they want to run ObamaCare, that is their right. But that is also their responsibility."

"The real problem with the Republican position isn’t that it is unprecedented or inherently out of bounds but that it is unlikely to achieve much. To put it mildly, the Republican handling of the continuing resolution has lacked the forethought traditionally associated with successful strategy. Republicans are now on their third version of the continuing resolution. Defunding is so last Tuesday. They have bid themselves down to a delay of the individual mandate and imposing ObamaCare on Congress. 

"Every indication is that Reid welcomed a shutdown on the assumption that Republicans could be made to pay the price. It’s not a bad bet, but the risk to Democrats is that they make their eagerness to press their partisan advantage too blatant. If the shutdown is so dire, presumably they should want to talk about how to resolve it. If the temporary suspension of specific government functions — the parks, services to veterans — is so harmful, presumably they should welcome Republican bills to restore them."

"Fear not the shutdown, Republicans in Congress!  

"You are the supposedly conservative alternative in politics and we are currently $16 trillion in the hole. The least you can do is stop spending so much money everyday to keep the vile beast going. Also, as the supposedly conservative alternative, you should be thrilled that all the 'nonessential' bureaucrats have been sent home while our military remains at post.  

"For most of us innocent taxpayers, this suits us just fine. The only people who should be scared are the big-government enthusiasts when the vast majority of Americans realize they didn't even notice the monstrous federal government had shut down and that they really don't need all of this nonsense that hurls us deeper and deeper into an abyss of debt with every passing week."

"Every Republican should be out front, on TV, radio and in print this week with a simple message:   

"'We have twice voted to fund every agency and program of the U.S. government (save ObamaCare) in a single CR. We will proceed now to pass CRs for each department and agency of the U.S. government, separately and individually. 

"And if Harry Reid's Senate refuses to pass a single one of those CRs, who then is shutting down NIH and the FDA?'"

"It's shutdown morning in Washington. Here's where we stand:  

"The Senate is scheduled to come back today at 2:00 p.m. At that point, as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has indicated, the Senate will reject the continuing resolution to fund the government passed by the House on Sunday morning. That resolution would delay ObamaCare for one year and repeal the medical-device tax. If no measure to fund the government is agreed to by the House and Senate by tonight, the government will shut down."

"Americans don’t want a dignified surrender on ObamaCare. They want someone to drive a stake through ObamaCare. ...  
 
"Two weeks ago, a brave Congress, listening to America, stood up and told Obama: Your red lines be damned; we’re not voting for war on Syria.

"Now House Republicans need to tell the country: Come hell or high water, we’re not voting to fund ObamaCare. We will pass a CR on everything else in the budget, but ObamaCare is not coming out of this House alive."

"[I]nstead of attacking ObamaCare and the breathtaking hypocrisy of the Democrats over this massively unpopular law, far too many Republicans have been spending their time attacking Ted Cruz. (Why didn't we see one-tenth as much venom directed at Sen. Marco Rubio for trying to give the Democrats 30 million new voters with amnesty as we have toward Cruz for trying to defund ObamaCare?)  

"For every minute you spend attacking Cruz on TV, Republicans, could you consider spending two minutes attacking ObamaCare?  ... 

"Whether or not Cruz succeeds, we wouldn't be talking about ObamaCare this week without his efforts to defund it -- at least those of us who are talking about this disastrous law, rather than attacking Cruz."

"Like an estimated 22 million other Americans, I am a self-employed small-business owner who buys health insurance for my family directly on the individual market. We have a high-deductible PPO plan that allows us to choose from a wide range of doctors. 

"Or rather, we had such a plan. 

"Last week, our family received notice from Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield of Colorado that we can no longer keep the plan we like because of 'changes from health care reform (also called the Affordable Care Act or ACA).'  The letter informed us that 'to meet the requirements of the new laws, your current plan can no longer be continued beyond your 2014 renewal date.' 

"In short: Obama lied. My health plan died."