Barro leaves out half the reason Obamacare deliberately killed low-premium plans: stealth redistribution. A central aim of the law was forcing those with more basic plans to buy more comprehensive plans and thus subsidize people who wanted or needed comprehensive coverage…

Honest Obamacare defenders say the president shouldn’t have promised to let Americans keep their insurance when he really meant that if Obama likes your health care plan, you can keep it.

“Vast swathes of policy are based on the correct presumption that people don’t know what’s best for them,” Barro wrote on Twitter on Tuesday, defending this approach.

But this paternalistic mindset, so honestly expressed by of one of Obama’s favorite writers, can also explain why the Obama administration was so willing to mislead on Obamacare: If people don’t know what’s best for them, there’s no reason to deal with them honestly.