April 9, 2010 1:03PM # Could Obamacare Survive a Fiscal Crisis? By Gerald P. O’Driscoll Jr. --- SHARE Over at Think Markets, NYU’s Mario Rizzo [asks how Obamacare might be repealed](http://thinkmarkets.wordpress.com/2010/04/09/how-obamacare-might-be-repealed/#comment-5279). He focuses on the fiscal brawl that will occur when the Medicare cuts must be implemented. Let’s take a look at another fiscal scenario. The Greek debt crisis is just the leading edge of a global debt crisis in developed countries. It is not Greece that matters to the rest of the European Union, but the precarious position of other highly indebted EU members: Portugal, Italy, Ireland, and Spain. Fiscally sound Germany could bail out Greece, but not all the others. A Greek default (likely if not inevitable) will fracture the EU and the contagion surely would spread to the United States. The result will be what I call a Leninist moment. Lenin famously observed that a situation must often get worse before it can get better. He had a different idea of what better would be than do libertarians, but his insight is nonetheless correct. The resulting fiscal crisis in the United States would finally force a serious debate over fiscal discipline. Not even eliminating all defense expenditures would close the budget gap. Could Obamacare survive the crisis? ##### Related Tags [Health Care](https://www.cato.org/health-care), [Tax and Budget Policy](https://www.cato.org/tax-budget-policy) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).