Clarity

Will Wilkinson, writing for the Economist, looks at the likelihood of young people being willing to sign up for Obamacare:

So, yes: if you are older, but too young for Medicare, or if you have pre-existing conditions, you're very probably going to do better buying an individual plan under Obamacare. And, yes: if you are healthy, young and shopping on the individual market for insurance, Obamacare certainly means you will pay more. Obamacare's champions like to take the edge off this fact by disparaging the basic level of insurance provided by inexpensive catastrophic policies. As Mr Krugman puts it, "these plans are cheap not just because they’re only available to the very healthy but because they don’t provide much insurance". Which is to say, the young and healthy will experience some "rate shock" at the Obamacare exchange not only because they will be subsidising those with a much higher cost of care, but also because they will be required to purchase more coverage than they might want or need.

Nobody actually disagrees about any of these facts, as far as I can tell. So why not be frank about the fact that Obamacare is going to stick it to the young and healthy on the individual market?

Considering we were told we'll have to pass the bill to see what's in it, being frank hasn't been a primary selling point up to now. We're now approaching the time where it will no longer be possible to hide that reality.