It turns out that you can "legislate morality."

Despite being adamant that it was a violation of the separation of church and state to impose something like an abortion ban on religious grounds, there was no shortage of progressive voices in the 2010 demanding that we obey the words of Jesus and enact the Affordable Care Act.

Being active in the anti-big government Tea Party movement back then, I remember one very contentious townhall held by Indiana's moderate "Blue Dog Democrat" Representative Joe Donnelly. Donnelly, a professing Catholic who now serves as Joe Biden's ambassador to the Vatican, ultimately claimed that his faith compelled him to vote in favor of the law informally nicknamed "Obamacare."

Progressive Christians ran cover for what amounted to a seismic breach of government into what remained of the healthcare free market, claiming that the legislation pleased Jesus, as we were "doing for the least of these." That bastardization of Scripture to serve political ends aside, fourteen years later, I think enough time has passed we can check in on those "least of these" to see how they're faring.

Buried under this fairly bland headline is the devastating reality that medical deductibles have increased exponentially in the last decade, meaning out of pocket costs for medical needs has become a heavy boot on the throat of average and low-income Americans - the very people Obamacare was to help.

That's not all.

It's important to note that this chart begins in 2000, a decade before the enactment of Obamacare. There's no question that health insurance premiums were skyrocketing and that there was a problem needing to be addressed. The important point here isn't that the system was adequate or in good shape in 2010. It's that the Affordable Care Act not only failed to fix the problem, it has exacerbated the pain and suffering.

The three core promises of the Obama administration were that the government health exchanges would permit you to keep your doctor if you liked them, keep your insurance if you liked it, and that it would curtail the rising cost of premiums. The first two were proven false within the first months of enactment, and it's fair to say the data now puts the lie to the third as well.

So why would reasonable lawmakers, who care about the well-being of the masses, hang on to it? Why would progressive Christians and Catholics, who played such a large role in making the moral case for the legislation continue defending it? There's no value in attempting to judge motivations or suggest that those who argued for Obamacare knew it would end this way. But there is value in being realists, in acknowledging mistakes and correcting course before more damage is done to "the least of these"?

For those who quoted Christ in their quest to impose the law, isn't reversing it what Jesus would now expect of you?

Then Vice President Joe Biden made headlines at the signing of Barack Obama's signature domestic accomplishment, leaning into his boss and calling Obamacare a "big, f---ing deal." For those who have followed the policy career of Mr. Biden, his celebratory endorsement should have sent up red flags as the sweet kiss of death. But too many did not, and here we are: that big f---ing deal has ended up creating a big f---ing problem.

Perhaps that's not entirely fair to say. There was a problem already in existence and lawmakers were confronted with a choice: address it by encouraging free market competition, or address it by getting the bureaucratic behemoth of the federal government involved.

They chose the latter and it failed.

Compassion and common sense would seem to say it's time to reverse course.