The free market
Possibly for the first time since 2010, good news about Obamacare: premiums on the newly-minted California health insurance exchange are lower than predicted. The rates published last week are so much better than what critics of the Affordable Care Act predicted that no less a Cassandra than Rick Ungar has admitted he was wrong. It seems like this whole insurance exchange thing might work out. Either that, or we are the objects of a clever public relations campaign. Avik Roy argues that individual rates are actually 64% to 146% higher on the exchange. He also bases his analysis on comparisons between the cheapest policies available before Obamacare—the ones that don’t meet the minimum standards for the California exchange—and the bronze-level coverage available now. So we can say with confidence that somebody is well-paid to mislead us, even if we don’t know who.