I don’t know what to say that hasn’t already been said, other than, for the love of God, you people. Anybody who didn’t know that the Affordable Care Act was going to be difficult to implementat was kidding themselves. I did wonder where the big roll-out was in terms of public education a couple months ago. We did a better job with rolling out mandatory seat-belt laws, but in fairness, that was less ambitious. But still, that means more prep, not less. Perhaps I just missed it, as I was focussed on other things, but right now progressives should be seething. They played chicken with the Tea Party types and forced a shutdown over a program that clearly wasn’t ready for roll out. That’s bad. Ack. ACK.

The problems:

1. The health care industry is unbelievably complicated. Most people have no idea what their insurance really covers–or how expensive charges can really get–until the very worst happens.

2. The ACA is more complicated than it should be. It’s a plan with many moving parts, as we say. There’s not much we can do about it due to the horse-trading nature of most legislatively created programs, but still. That doesn’t help.

3. But no, people, the ‘way it was’ before the us attempted to provide health care wasn’t sunshine and roses, either. Just because things were fine for you doesn’t mean it was fine for society, unless you are Margaret Thatcher, and you plan to live your life in such a way that you die disliked even by your own party and appointees. (I think that’s a fair statement.) Your political and economic community matters even if the only political factors you care about are taxation and liberty.