Editorial Board
Obamacare’s Narrow Networks Could Save Us All Some Money: View
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The opening of the Affordable Care Act’s state insurance exchanges has produced justified guffaws about the ability of the federal government to build a working website. It may also spur something more useful: a reconsideration, with new information for both employees and employers, of the tradeoff between greater choice and lower costs in health care.
One of the main purposes of the exchanges is to offer people an easy way to compare insurance plans. Because insurers can’t discriminate based on pre-existing conditions, they have to compete largely on price. In response, they have created plans with relatively small networks of doctors and hospitals, leading to lower premiums.