Debate: Can Obamacare survive a Republican Senate and another Supreme Court challenge?

With Republican victories in the midterm elections, the future of Obamacare is once again up in the air.

The GOP's conservative tea party wing wants to attempt another repeal of President Barack Obama's signature health law, though party leaders are reportedly unconvinced - there aren't enough votes to overcome the veto that President Obama would certainly use in the matter.

What's more, the Supreme Court just agreed to hear a case that could invalidate Obamacare's subsidies for low-income health insurance buyers.

Is this this end for Obamacare? Joel Mathis and Ben Boychuk debate the issue.

JOEL MATHIS The future of Obamacare? Probably the same as its past: A bit of a mess.

But here's what we do know: Congress can't muster enough votes to fully strike the law down; Republicans simply don't have a veto-proof majority.

Those conservatives who think they can get the president to agree to demolish his signature legislative achievement if they just apply enough pressure are, frankly, kidding themselves. He's got a legacy to consider, after all, and attempting to extend health coverage to millions of uninsured people - even in the face of intense political opposition - will probably be better regarded by both historians and voters than meekly giving up on the project years later.

It'll be fun to watch the GOP try, however. For years, Republicans have said their goal is to "repeal and replace" Obamacare.

The dirty secret? Outside of a couple of reports gathering dust somewhere in a think tank's filing cabinet, Republicans have no plan at all to replace Obamacare. Zip. Zero. Nada. (Then again: Obamacare started as a dusty report in a conservative think tank's filing cabinet. So you never know.)

The other dirty secret: There are plenty of provisions in Obamacare that Republicans kind of like, too. Repeal Obamacare, and suddenly insurance companies can deny coverage on the basis of a patient's history. Repeal Obamacare, and young twentysomethings will be expelled from their parents insurance policies. Repeal Obamacare, and a whole bunch of cost-control measures go with it. There's a reason GOP leadership is hesitant to actually fight this fight.

Of course, the Supreme Court might do the job for them, by gutting subsidies for state-level insurance exchanges. Of course, if the court does rule that way, more than 4 million people will see their insurance costs rise dramatically and suddenly, and more than a few of them will give up insurance altogether.

"Success" on Republican terms means a lot of people get hurt.

The law isn't perfect: Its implementation has been frustrating and embarrassing for liberals. But it's still better and more helpful to more Americans than anything Republicans seriously propose to do. Maybe they'll succeed in striking it down. They probably won't be happy with the results.

BEN BOYCHUK Sorry, Democrats, but the jig is just about up for the oxymoronic Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

First, the U.S. Supreme Court last week agreed to take a case that could end the law's subsidies to people who buy insurance from exchanges run by the federal government. Obamacare supporters claim the case really hinges on a "typo," which says subsidies may go only to people buying from exchanges "established by the states." Thirty-five states opted to let the feds run exchanges for them.

Trouble is, there's already a legal remedy for such "typos." It's called the scrivener's error doctrine. But the government hasn't used it, which suggests the "typo" claim is political spin, not a legal argument.

Then, this past week, a video emerged of Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber speaking a bit too candidly about how the law passed.

"Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage," he told an audience at the University of Pennsylvania in October 2013. "And basically, call it the 'stupidity of the American voter' or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical to getting the thing to pass." For conservative critics, Gruber's revelations confirm what we've been saying since 2010: the law is built on a foundation of lies. Its proponents wrote the legislation in way that disguised a massive wealth transfer from the young and healthy to the old and sick.

As long as the president wields his veto pen, repealing Obamacare would be an exercise in futility. But Republicans could make substantive improvements short of full repeal.

Some ideas, such as ending the medical-device tax, already have bipartisan support. The Republicans could also offer tax credits to individuals and families buying private insurance (a proposal offered by my Manhattan Institute colleague Avik Roy).

Even better still, Congress could repeal the "employer mandate" that the president himself delayed implementing until next year.

Let the Republicans pass those reforms - which would be very popular to say nothing of effective - and dare the lame duck president to reject them. It should be an illuminating exercise.

Ben Boychuk is associate editor of the Manhattan Institute's City Journal. Joel Mathis is associate editor for Philadelphia Magazine.