While President Obama faces widespread backlash over his signature health care law, an overlooked casualty of Obamacare is bipartisanship.

It's abundantly clear to Republicans and, now, to many Democrats, that the Affordable Care Act is objectively flawed and that its ill-planned implementation is harming many Americans in need of quality care.

When a law is so badly botched, a president should be able to return to Congress to ask for help in fixing the glitches. President Obama cannot do that because he has not one Republican ally in Congress — which is his fault.

Presidents Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, even George W. Bush cultivated allies from across the aisle from whom they could seek assistance for major legislation.

President Reagan's landmark tax cut bill had massive Democratic support and even Democratic co-sponsors. President Clinton and Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich worked arm-in-arm to enact welfare reform. And, in an unlikely pairing, President Bush and the late liberal Sen. Ted Kennedy passed No Child Left Behind.

Because Mr. Obama passed his health law in 2010 without one Republican vote in either the House or Senate, he left himself vulnerable and without a GOP ally. Also, the ACA became a catalyst for further polarizing Congress. Democrats who voted against Obamacare were targeted and taken out during the 2010 primaries, Republican electorates opted for the most ideological candidates to send to Washington as a counterbalance to Mr. Obama and congressional Democrats.

If Mr. Obama intends to recover from this mess and fix his namesake legislation, he must offer some massive concession to Republicans in order to gain a measure of trust. Whether he offers entitlement reform, a tax-cut package or movement on some other major Republican priority, such a gesture would at least be a step in the right direction.

Every day the president waits, and Obamacare rollout blunders make national headlines, the better the chance Republicans have at taking back the Senate and forcing him to either sign legislation he opposes or take the political risk of vetoing it.

It may just take a Republican Congress to force compromise on the president, but he should act now before we see an even further-divided nation.

REPRINTED FROM THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER