Repeal action on President Obama's health care law is about to heat up after the New Year, as Politico reports:

President Barack Obama will head to Capitol Hill Wednesday to meet with congressional Democrats about how to shield Obamacare from Republican efforts to dismantle it, a Capitol Hill source told POLITICO.

The meeting is at 9 a.m. in the Congressional Visitors Center auditorium and is for both House and Senate Democrats, according to a notice sent to members Friday morning.

With Republican[s] vowing to begin repealing Obamacare almost immediately when the 115th Congress convenes next week, Democratic lawmakers are immersed in strategy sessions on how to protect the nearly seven-year-old health care law.

In a "'Dear Colleague' letter this week," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) writes:

The Affordable Care Act has been successful in meeting its goals of reducing cost, increasing access and improving quality of care.

Who could argue with that?

As Politico recounts, Republicans are likely to use a budget reconciliation bill – requiring only a simple majority to pass the Senate – to undo "significant portions of Obamacare" while "also mulling a lengthy transition period" for full repeal of the health care law. 

With President-Elect Donald Trump having made immediate repeal of "the disaster known as Obamacare" a closing argument in the final days of the presidential election campaign, and President Obama having claimed that his "policies are on the ballot," an Obamacare battle royal is likely in the coming months.

Opposition to Obamacare has arguably driven heavy losses by the Democrats at all levels in the 2010, 2014, and now the 2016 elections.

Yet Democrats from Obama to Pelosi to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) seem oblivious.  An amusing column by Amanda Carpenter at Conservative Review traces Senator Schumer's tortured logic:

2010… "[A]s people learn about the bill, and now that the bill is enacted, it's going to become more and more popular."

2014… "Democrats lost the opportunity the American people gave them. We took their mandate and put all of our focus on the wrong problem —health care reform."

Now… Schumer is saying Republicans will "rue the day" they repeal Obamacare. "It's a political nightmare for them." … "They'll be like the dog that caught the bus."

So what is it? Schumer's arguments can't be reasoned.  If Obamacare was so popular, why did Democrats lose their Senate majority over it? If Obamacare is so unpopular, why would Republicans "rue the day" they repealed it?

What Mr. Schumer really means is that Democrats now rue the day they passed this millstone of a health care law in the first place.

Betsy McCaughey, writing at The New York Post, dismantles the Democratic Party's "pre-existing conditions" argument against repeal:

President Obama says repeal will mean going "back to discriminating against Americans with pre-existing conditions."

That's fake news.

The truth is, all Republican proposals to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act protect people with pre-existing conditions.

Likewise, they all eliminate ObamaCare's invidious discrimination against healthy people.

…To see how the GOP approach would work, look to Alaska, a state that seized the initiative when healthy consumers rebelled against their soaring ObamaCare premiums.

The burden of caring for 500 chronically ill patients was making ObamaCare unaffordable for all 23,000 Alaskans in the individual market.

…So in June state authorities created a separate "high-risk" pool for the sickest people, with the cost shouldered by all Alaska taxpayers, instead of being thrust on buyers in the individual insurance market. As a result, premium hikes were kept to single digits.

The Alaska remedy is a microcosm of what congressional Republicans propose for all 50 states.

McCaughey figures that subsidies for high-risk pools nationwide would cost around $16 billion annually:

Now, $16 billion sounds like a fortune. But it's less than half the $43 billion spent on ObamaCare plan subsidies last year. And it's money far better spent, because it directly helps the sickest among us.

The Post column notes that, prior to Obamacare, 35 states offered high-risk pools and that such pools offer better coverage to seriously ill patients, such as the cancer patient who need to choose the right oncologist without the severe limitations on choice of doctor and hospital posed by Obamacare plans.  As McCaughey observes:

The pre-existing conditions crisis was largely concocted to sell Obama's health law.

The Democrats will certainly make a lot of noise over Obamacare and other objects of progressive affection, but who will be listening aside from their far-left base?

Roger Kimball's observations at PJ Media about Trump Derangement Syndrome apply equally well to the remnants of the Democratic Party in Congress:

The scales have fallen from our eyes and we find that we don't care about almost anything they have to say about any subject.

... But they will become ever more irrelevant even if they become ever shriller and more histrionic.

Don't look now, Democrats, but there's a new sheriff in town.