Health Consumers Finding Out They Were Sold a Lemon
...U.S. cost-sharing is actually low, by international standards; just 23 percent of our private health spending comes from out-of-pocket expenditures by the consumers of health care. We like being insulated from costs, and we’re rich enough to demand it. Assuming that the Cadillac tax goes into effect (though I’m still sort of skeptical), a whole lot of those in the 80 percent category are going to lose a plan they liked because the government made it too expensive for companies to keep delivering it. Yes, of course, companies already cancel plans quite frequently. But these cancellations are going to happen all at once, because the law demanded it. ...

...In this, read the future of U.S. policy-making. Not just because Obamacare means that we can now join the rest of the “civilized” world in spending most of our political energy quarreling about the health-care system, but also because we have reached the end of the era when you can have a policy that’s mostly benefits. Social Security, Medicare, Medicare Part D -- these programs gave people a new benefit, with very little taken away from them. The same can be said about Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion. But the rest of the program -- the part that took up most of the legislation and legislative energy -- tries to remake the benefits that the majority of the country is already enjoying. And so far, they’re not enjoying it.