RUSH: One of the least-mentioned items in the Republican tax bill is that it gets rid of the Obamacare individual mandate. Democrats won’t talk about it because they’re embarrassed. They had a premature declaration of victory when Republicans failed to repeal Obamacare earlier this year. But when the individual mandate goes, Obamacare is as good as gutted.

Here’s proof: Last weekend, Politico outlined “how blue states might save Obamacare’s markets.” Democrat politicians in California, Connecticut, New Jersey, and other blue states are quietly plotting to create state mandates requiring everyone to buy health insurance to keep Obamacare alive.

“But,” says Politico “even in the most Obamacare-friendly states, trying to implement an individual mandate could be political risky, particularly in an election year.”

Wait a minute! We’ve been told Americans now love Obamacare. That after seven years of hating it, Americans don’t want Obamacare repealed and replaced. We were bombarded with polls claiming the Republican Congress would suffer horribly if they kept their promise to get rid of it. Establishment Republicans believed that and they went limp.

Now with the individual mandate on the chopping block, blue-state liberal Democrats are afraid that forcing people to buy Obamacare in their states could cost them their jobs?

What does that tell you? It tells you Obamacare has been a disaster from Day 1 and everybody knew it and still knows it!