I am going to ask you to assume that you are a Republican Member of the House of Representatives (I know that this is hard).
I am going to ask you to assume that you have a genuine belief in smaller government and that to achieve this goal, you want to make sure that as many other Republicans with similar views are elected to the House. And I am also going to ask you to assume that you also believe the Republican rhetoric that Obamacare is another big government program and will be a disaster for the country.
And as is the case now, the Republicans have done everything reasonable to stop Obamacare. They endorsed a Presidential candidate who supported the repeal of Obamacare and have repeatedly voted to repeal it in the House. And they have supported the efforts to get Obamacare overturned in the Courts (which were unsuccessful).
You as a House Republican would now be facing two choices--
1) You could tell the American people that you tried, but as the Republicans don't control either the Senate or the White House, there really is nothing you can do as the only options available would cause great harm to the people of this country. You would then tell the American people that as much as you don't like Obamacare, you can't inflict further harm on them And you would encourage them to vote Republican in the 2014 and 2016 elections so that Obamacare can be "repealed and replaced."
or 2) you could elect to shut down the government and threaten to default on the debt unless Obamacare is defunded.
Facing these two choices, you would not choose choice #2 because as bad as you would think that Obamacare was, you would know that shutting down the government and defaulting on the country's debt would do great harm to the country. You would also know that should this occur, the American people would punish the Republicans for this, which would mean that you would be less likely to get smaller government legislation through the U.S. Congress, and that you might lose your seat.
Instead, you would let this horrible program known as Obamacare go into effect. You would then tell the American people "I told you so" and that the only way to make things better would be to elect more Republicans.
But the House Republicans are not picking the logical option--option #1. They are instead picking option #2.
And why would they do this? Maybe they really are that crazy. But more likely, it is because they know that when the Affordable Care Act (otherwise known as Obamacare) becomes effective, it will not be the boogeyman that the Republicans are making it out to be. They know that the American people will like it, and when the American people realize that the Republicans have been lying to them all these years, they will elect more Democrats and they will not be reelected. They will know that if the American people believe that the Republicans have been lying, the country may indeed put the House, Senate and the White House in Democratic hands. And more Democrats will mean an end to the Republicans' vision of smaller government.
So if you assume that the House Republicans know that Obamacare will benefit the American people and are lying about it, their choice of option #2 becomes more understandable. They will do anything to stop the Act from becoming reality.
The House Republicans will say anything and do anything to stop the law from going into effect. And since all reasonable measures have failed, the only ones open to them now are the unreasonable ones--ones so damaging to this country, that they are betting that the Democrats are so scared of occurring, that the Democrats will blink and stop the Affordable Care Act.
And this explains why they are so adamant that Obamacare be defunded. And this is why they are willing to take this country into an abyss to do so.
Because the secret that the House Republicans don't want the American people to know, is that Obamacare will actually help them.