Obamacare enrollees having trouble finding specialists

[jaichind]

This is a feature not a bug.  It is the users of Obamacare did not get the memo on that one.

[jaichind]

If you buy the absolute cheapest Bronze plan, you're going to struggle to get the same access and quality of care as someone who pays more for a mid-range Silver plan. That really shouldn't be a huge surprise to anyone.

Not sure this is true in all cases.  This would be true in some cases where the difference between say Bronze and Gold plan would be different networks, but a lot of plans have the same networks be it Bronze or Gold or Platinum.  The difference in these cases are more the deductible and max out-of-pocket.  When selecting the plan the Obamacare users should read the fine print on what the network is. 

For a reasonably healthy person the best deal I think is to pick the most expensive Bronze plan.  Usually the network is pretty good but it is a lot less expensive than Gold plans.  The cost sharing would not be great but if you are healthy it is unlikely that you would spend that much out-of-pocket anyway.

[jaichind]

And on a "free market" system, people die because they can't afford health insurance. But oh my, paying for someone else is so much worse than letting said someone die!

But on other non-free market systems people also die waiting in line since rationing is the obvious consequence o a non-free market system.  

Besides, we must assign some sort of economic value of life.  We might disagree on what that value is but there must be such an assumed value.  Otherwise we should enforce rules like the speed limit on cars should be 10 miles/per hour which would saves tens of thousands of lives a year.  Once we agree there will have to be a trade off between life and economic cost the debate should then be how to do it more efficiently.  To assert a system is no good because some lives are lost is to ignore this basic reality.