In Southern California, the Los Angeles Times reported, Health Net individual policyholders will have access to less than a third of the doctors on employer plans.

Peter Lee, executive director of Covered California, told the San Francisco Chronicle that all but three of the 12 state exchange providers limit doctors and hospitals.

Lee rightly points out that for years — even before Obamacare — the market has narrowed choices to cut costs. He is absolutely right. The New York Times reports that the University of California, Berkeley is about to exclude two nearby Sutter hospitals because UC could not reach a price agreement with California’s highest net-income nonprofit hospital.

Critics of today’s delivery system rejoice in such moves because they want a single-payer system. But the UC faculty union warned that the move will lead to “significant degradation in the quality of insurance” and “significant increases in costs” for members seeking “the same quality of care.”