David Harsanyi of the Federalist website argues this week that Republicans ought to serve as a real-life “death panel” for the Affordable Care Act.

Here’s something worth remembering: If we evaluate Obamacare using the parameters Democrats themselves laid out when campaigning and passing the historically partisan reform, we have no choice but to view it as a debacle.

Of course, there’s the obvious instances of outright falsehoods: take Obama’s “If you like your health-care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health-care plan.” Millions of Americans have been forced off their insurance plans, no matter how much they liked them.

The president also assured Americans that Obamacare would lower premiums for the typical family by $2,500. Instead, average premiums have gone up by more than $3,700. Colorado, for instance, expects health-insurance rates to jump 20 percent on average for individual buyers next year alone. All those explainers, skewed charts, and pretend projections were wrong.

Obama also pledged that once state marketplaces were “fully implemented” Americans would be able to buy insurance at the same “good rates” as “an employee at a big company can get right now — which means your premiums will go down.” They haven’t. …

… Perhaps the only real achievement Obama and his allies can dependably point to is the increase in insured Americans. When we consider government penalizes you for failing to buy insurance, it’s hardly a surprise. It’s tantamount to bragging about increasing military recruitment numbers after passing a draft. Although Democrats do seem perversely satisfied with idea of using state force as a marketing tool.

Obamacare was ostensibly about controlling greedy insurance companies (who wrote most the cronyistic bill in the first place) and “bending the cost curve.” In reality, Democrats have used Obamacare as a tool for social engineering and expanding the welfare state. As Obamacare falls apart, Democrats now turn to the “public option” — a state-run program — because incrementalism is what they always do.