The GOP's "Better Care" act is better than you think

This also explains why there’s a lot to like about the Better Care Reconciliation Act. It’s a market-oriented plan that’s serious about the trade-offs involved in such an approach. If you want to remove some bureaucratic hurdles and government largesse from the health-care market, as many conservatives do, then some people will lose coverage, and others will see an increase in their out-of-pocket costs. That’s how markets work, even if the architects of ObamaCare refused to believe it.

And it’s worth noting that Better Care is realistic, not nihlistic. Like ObamaCare, it recognizes that the government can and should play a role in situations where the market, if left to its own devices, has merciless implications. Most significantly, it largely preserves the protections the 2009 law established for Americans with pre-existing conditions, and provides reinsurance for the insurers who might have balked at doing so. That was a humane and worthwhile achievement which Democrats deserve credit for, even if they are heartless monsters who left millions of Americans uninsured.