By design or default, Justice Roberts may have done all of us a great favor.  In other words, his vote saying that the law was constitutional has given us all a chance to live under it.

What if Obamacare had been declared unconstitutional?  We would have spent the last three years hearing that those five Reagan-Bush-Bush justices killed affordable health care for all.

The latest is that the law is not very affordable, as Rich Lowry wrote today:

The problem is that the deductibles on many Americans' health insurance policies have shot up so high that as a practical matter they can't afford care. If a couple had a deductible of, say, $500 in the past, and it's now $3,000, that couple has to spend a lot of money out-of-pocket before reaping the benefits of coverage. And the higher the deductible, the more likely a person is going to skip some sort of needed treatment or medicine because he or she can't afford the up-front costs.

"About a quarter of all non-elderly Americans with private insurance coverage do not have sufficient liquid assets to pay even a mid-range deductible, which at today's rates would be $1,200 for single coverage and $2,400 for family coverage," the Wall Street Journal reported in March.

So now, many of the same groups that agitated for Obamacare are agitating for new government spending or tighter controls on the insurance industry and businesses to "solve" the problem. But perhaps the first question to ask is: How did those deductibles get so high in the first place?

The answer is Obamacare.

Obamacare's authors failed Common Sense 101.

First, you can't mess with one sixth of our GDP without unintended consequences.  Our health care system is a complex state-by-state reality that has developed over decades.

Second, people like choices, and I mean liberals, too.  It is silly to force 50-something couples to pay for maternity leave.

Third, the authors also failed actuarial reality.  The pool is older and sick.  A little sticker shock may be coming true.

The tragedy is that it didn't have to happen.  We didn't have to wreck our excellent health care system to help those who can't afford premiums, in transition between jobs, or with a pre-existing condition.   

We had solutions on the table for those problems.  Unfortunately, we took the political route and now face the economic consequences.

Repeal Obamacare and replace it with a market-oriented solution that actually addresses our health care needs.   

Even better that, let the states figure it out.

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