The most devastating indictment of the president's proposal is that it threatens to destroy virtually everything about American health care that's worth preserving. Under the plan's layers of regulation and oversight, even seeing a doctor whenever you like will be no easy matter: access to physicians will be carefully regulated by gatekeepers; referrals to specialists will be strongly discouraged; second opinions will be almost unheard of; and the availability of new drugs will be limited.

Actually, not because of anyone's intention but just because of some sociological and some other things that have happened over 25, 30 years, the parties have sorted themselves out much more ideologically, which has some benefits and some costs.

Look, at actual Republican and conservative think-tank proposals to replace ObamaCare all have the pre-existing condition provision in, done somewhat differently from [Barack] President Obama's.

First of all, legally, it's hard to do these things[ get rid of ObamaCare]. Donald Trump needs a lot of competent people.

Mitt Romney has to convince the American public that they need to do something they're not usually inclined to do - replace a sitting president with a challenger. And unlike in 1980 and 1992, when the public was persuaded to do just that, the incumbent president has not been weakened by a primary opponent.

There are a few things [Donald Trump] has been pretty clear he'll do. A big infrastructure program that he'll get bipartisan support for.

In any case, open-seat presidential elections like 2008 just are different in character from incumbent reelects, and I think that's the most important thing about this election - is that once there's an incumbent running for reelection, most of the debate is about, "Has he [Barack Obama] done a good job?" Most of the judgment is, "Do you want to keep him or do you want to replace him?" Now, the opponent has to also be acceptable and has to make his own case.