The New York Times deigned just now to explain an awkward situation about Obamacare to their readers. To wit: there are many people who have looked at the penalty for not getting insurance and realized that fine for not paying it is considerably lower than the cost of getting even the cheapest plan on the Obamacare exchanges (particularly when you factor in rising deductibles, which is something that most Obamacare boosters refuse to do*). So those people have opted out of Obamacare, which is worrying the folks running Obamacare, because opting out was supposed to be something that a few cranks did, not possibly up to ten million people or so.

Yes, I know that this sounds familiar to RedState readers: we’ve been saying this ever since Obamacare got revved up. The situation hasn’t really improved, either – but that isn’t the point.  The point is apparently that the NYT is taking the opportunity granted them by the new year to explain some very unpleasant truths to its readership.  One of which being: the wonderfully optimistic plan where everybody would be gently nudged into going onto Obamacare because of, gasp, a fine did not crash and burn so much as simply spontaneously combust, and before said plan ever even left the hangar. As many people have said before: it turns out Americans actually can do math. Go figure…

…Sorry.

Note, by the way, that the NYT is still kind of filtering the truth for its readership. The most obvious gap in their narrative? One where they explain how the government can hope to fix its problem. Now, admittedly, there’s no way that they can actually admit that no, the government cannot raise the penalty somehow without explaining why. And that’s because the reason why the government cannot raise the penalty easily is politically inconvenient.  But our readers know the answer anyway: the government can’t raise the penalty amounts because the Supreme Court declared the individual mandate to be a tax.  Which I imagine came as a nasty surprise to the people who are trying to manage Obamacare, and the chill weight of said decision still blights their lives, each and every day.

Not that I mind.

H/T @TheRickWilson.

Moe Lane

PS: If the individual mandate is a tax, well: taxes can be repealed by an Act of Congress. All you need is either a veto-proof majority in both Houses… or a President willing to sign that particular bill. I submit to all of you that the latter would be easier to obtain.

*Can you blame them? Well, OK, true, you can always blame them.  But let’s admit it: we can all understand why Obamacare boosters are doing that. They just don’t have many good options, there.