Who pays more for health care?

There’s a rough consensus that Steven Brill’s massive story on health-care prices is an impressive piece of reporting with some less compelling analysis. Brill’s right-leaning critics defend hospital profits or blame regulation and/or employer-sponsored insurance. More liberal folks see in Brill’s reporting an oddly unmade case for price controls or a single-payer system or both.

I agree with the latter group. But what really bothers me about Brill’s article is how dismissive it is of the progress represented by Obamacare.

That’s because the most troubling thing his reporting illuminates isn’t the overall cost of health care. It’s the fact that the people who are charged dramatically more than the rest of us are those who can least afford to pay: the uninsured and underinsured. And whatever its shortcomings, Obamacare is doing a lot to get people insured.