Insurance giant Aetna is pulling out from exchanges in 11 of 15 states, joining a growing stampede of underwriters. And some—though by no means all—liberals are grudgingly even beginning to acknowledge that the dreaded death spiral of adverse selection is setting into their beloved Obamacare.
But that doesn’t mean that they’ll do the right thing and allow market forces and competition to lower prices and deliver better health care products, notes Reason Foundation Senior Analyst Shikha Dalmia. No, they are resorting to a version of the argument that communism would have worked if it had been applied in a purer form. There is a growing chorus claiming that what the law needs is a “public option”—a government plan to compete with the Aetnas of the world and bring down coverage costs. But they are wrong again.