Instead, all of Obamacare’s insurance plans are offered by private firms — the same companies that also provide employer-sponsored insurance. Disappointing his liberal supporters, Obama declined to include even a single public, government-run health plan. All the apocalyptic right-wing rhetoric about socialism and the end of freedom is nothing but hot air. Soon, no one will take it seriously.

Those who are genuinely worried about the cost of a new entitlement should have their concerns taken seriously. But if money is the overriding issue, the obvious thing to do is go further and adopt a truly universal system like those in other industrialized countries. …

Someday, fiscal conservatives will acknowledge those numbers. For now, we are stuck with a fee-for-service health-care system that is perhaps the most wasteful in the world. Critics of Obamacare seem not to understand that the vast numbers of uninsured Americans — about 15 percent of the population — contribute heavily to the system’s inefficiencies.