It’s an empirical issue, a numbers question–but isn’t it clear that this fraction-of-society risk pool will be a lot worse (i.e. unhealthier an more expensive) than not just a) the risk pool insured by one of the “lottery winners’” now-cancelled individual policies but also b) the risk pool of a typical big employer–say IBM, even if there are some very sick people at IBM? More to the point, it’s probably also worse than c) our hypothetical society-wide risk pool. That means individuals who wind up in the exchanges, and pay their portion of that relatively lousy risk pool will be paying more than what would be their Gruberian Fair Share.

Maybe it won’t be a lot more. Maybe it will. But it will be enough more so that these individuals will be justifiably immune to guilt-tripping from Obamans who say they should suck it up and pay the price the exchanges are charging in order to cover the sick. They’ll be covering more than their share of the sick.** They’re being penalized, in effect, because they’ve wound up in the risk-filled sump of the Obamacare exchanges.