As far as people being laid off, though, it might be worth comparing how many people are losing their incomes in the short versus those in the private sector who will either be laid off outright, stuck with unaffordable health insurance bills (which unlike healthCARE bills they will likely be unable to make go away in bankruptcy), or permanently set at 29 hours.
Consider the economic cost of the IMPLEMENTATION of Obamacare. It will be far, far worse than anything that will happen, ever, if the “shutdown” is continued.
And the long game works for the Republicans better, in my view. People will get personally pissed at Obama for closing the National Park Service if the Republicans get their message out. They will be pissed that he is not even TRYING to APPEAR like he is interested in anything approaching a compromise on a bill that was and remains something the vast bulk of Americans oppose, and which was passed on a strict party line vote, barely.
I say let this thing go on indefinitely. We have been passing Continuing Resolutions periodically anyway, since asshole Harry Reid won’t do his job. We just keep funding everything but Obamacare.
I would add that these Exchanges are plainly a failure. They are not only increasing premiums, but creating penalties where there were none before. This is when they work correctly, which in a great many cases they plainly are not, despite the fact that Obama has had 3-4 years to get them set up.
The whole thing is a disaster, and the longer this goes on, the harder and harder it will be for the Matt Lauers of the world to keep the truth from getting out.