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Whatever else happens in the ongoing drama of the implementation, selective de-implementation, delays, waivers and executive orders of dubious legality surrounding Obamacare, one thing is fairly certain. The next proposed big-government solution to a real or perceived big societal problem is likely to be met with considerable skepticism.

That is the silver lining in the monstrous cloud that is Obamacare.

Most liberal, big-government programs only reveal the truth of conservative objections to them over a period of years or even decades. Even then, that truth is hard for many to see.

As an example, it took a half century for the expansion of welfare to bring about the breakdown of the black family, something which conservatives – and even a few liberals like Daniel Patrick Moynihan – warned of at the time. Even now the connection between the two is not fully appreciated by a majority of Americans.

Opponents of Medicare warned that its original cost projections were wildly unrealistic and that basic demography was being ignored in making them. But the inevitable insolvency of the program played out in slow motion. In polls taken today, the threat that Medicare poses to the very solvency of the nation still fails to make the top five on the list of things Americans are most concerned about.

But unlike these two examples, the utter unworkability of a cabinet department (Dept. of Health & Human Services) trying to manage and control one sixth of the U.S. economy is revealing itself in real time. The Affordable Care Act is so fundamentally flawed, is having such immediate negative effects and is so impossible to implement, that unlike prior entitlements, a large and growing number of people are hoping this entitlement dies in its crib.

The president’s serial revisions and waivers to Obamacare serve as clear evidence that the law simply cannot work as currently on the books. That he is scrambling by unilaterally changing the law time and again by executive fiat is proving to be a bridge too far for most of the country. A recent Fox News poll revealed that 70 percent of the country believes that the president is overstepping his Constitutional authority.

To the dismay of the administration, even one-time supporters of Obamacare are turning on it. As liberal Ron Fornier lamented in his National Journal column,

“It’s getting difficult and slinking toward impossible to defend the Affordable Care Act.”

And thus I say “good luck” to some future FDR or LBJ or Barack Obama who comes with a sweeping, big government “solution” to whatever the cause célèbre social problem happens to be at the time. For a generation, people are going to remember the big government “solution” to the health care “crisis” that turned into the farce called Obamacare.

And that’s why I take heart in saying that it’s entirely possible that in the end, we on the right may one day look upon Obamacare as a priceless gift.