There are countless ideas floating around for fixing the Obamacare mess — and there are legions of partisans on both sides gearing up for a street fight over whatever approach may be taken.  In a post titled “Hope Is All Obamacare Has Left,” the indispensable Megan McArdle convincingly argues that none of the ideas will work.

What a mess.  But one thing is clear — the time to say “if you like your health plan, you can keep it” has passed.  A few diehards may still be trying to justify the use of that statement in the past, but surely all can agree that the phrase is poison and the White House should not keep saying it.

On Saturday, Nov. 9, weeks after the controversy erupted, Politico posted an article reporting that parts of the healthcare section of whitehouse.gov had been updated.  However:

“If you like your plan you can keep it and you don’t have to change a thing due to the health care law,” the website still reads.

I saw the Politico article on the 10th, I believe, and I kind of shrugged.  I’ve been responsible for website content, and I know how easy it is for outdated text to live on longer than it should.  I was curious to see how the White House had updated the passage based on the Politico article, so I clicked through to whitehouse.gov.

Unbelievable.  The language was still there.  If you click on the tiny screenshot at right, you’ll get a version you can read.

And to spare you any further dramatic buildup, as I write this on the afternoon of Nov. 13, four days to the hour after the Politico story was posted, the official White House website still says “if you like your plan you can keep it.”

The mind reels.

(The unrelated whitehouse.gov photo of the president’s reflection seems metaphorical, somehow.)