“More than half of the counties in 34 states using the federal health insurance exchange lack even a bronze plan that’s affordable — by the government’s own definition — for 40-year-old couples who make just a little too much for financial assistance, a USA TODAY analysis shows.

“Many of these counties are in rural, less populous areas that already had limited choice and pricey plans, but many others are heavily populated, such as Bergen County, N.J., and Philadelphia and Milwaukee counties.

“More than a third don’t offer an affordable plan in the four tiers of coverage known as bronze, silver, gold or platinum for people buying individual plans who are 50 or older and ineligible for subsidies.

“Those making more than 400% of the federal poverty limit — $47,780 for an individual or $61,496 for a couple — are ineligible for subsidies to buy insurance.”

No surprise to readers of conservative, libertarian websites

None of this comes to any surprise to readers of Cal Watchdog, Instapundit, Hit & Run, NRO’s The Corner or plenty more websites where critical thinking about the administration’s biggest initiative trumped partisanship. The Affordable Care Act really was a disaster. Right-wing racists really weren’t making that up.

But instead of seeing all the advance signs the ACA was going to be a debacle, the media either bought the idea that Obamacare critics were racists or took a wait-and-see attitude.

Not any more. Here’s more from USA Today:

“The USA TODAY analysis looked at whether premiums for the least expensive plan in any of the metal levels was more than 8% of household income. That’s similar to the affordability test used by the federal government to determine whether premiums are so expensive consumers aren’t required to buy plans under the Affordable Care Act.

“The number of people who earn close to the subsidy cutoff and are priced out of affordable coverage may be a small slice of the estimated 4.4 million people buying their own insurance and ineligible for subsidies. But the analysis clearly shows how the sticker shock hitting many in the middle class, including the self-employed and early retirees, isn’t just a perception problem. The lack of counties with affordable plans means many middle-class people will either opt out of insurance or pay too much to buy it.

“The prices of exchange plans have shocked many shoppers, especially those who had plans canceled because they did not meet the ACA coverage requirements. But experts are not surprised.

“‘The ACA was not designed to reduce costs or, the law’s name notwithstanding, to make health insurance coverage affordable for the vast majority of Americans,’ says health care consultant Kip Piper, a former government and insurance industry official. ‘The law uses taxpayer dollars to lower costs for the low-income uninsured but it also increases costs overall and shifts costs within the marketplace.’

“Along with underscoring how high rates are in many places, the analysis could portend more problems for the health law’s troubled rollout. The Congressional Budget Office projected 7 million people would sign up for the law by the end of 2014 and enrollment is already falling several million short of that goal. Insurers need a lot of relatively healthy people to sign up for insurance to make up for the higher cost of insuring the less healthy. Highly subsidized lower-income consumers who haven’t had insurance before often weren’t getting regular doctors’ visits. If many of those making about $50,000 for an individual or about $62,000 in household income for a couple opt out of the new health care system, it will deprive it of some of the counterbalancing effect needed.”

We need about 4,000 reverse Pulitzers

This isn’t just an indictment of Obama’s incompetence. It’s an indictment of the sycophancy of the national media.

Instead of giving out 20 Pulitzers this spring, the Pulitzer committee should give out 4,000 reverse Pulitzers to the reporters and pundits for newspapers, magazines and online sites covering Washington. The Obamacare debacle is mostly on the Democrats. But it is also on their de facto media allies.

On the biggest issue of his presidency, they gave their pal a pass. And then things went so bad that they couldn’t keep covering for him.

By Chris Reed

One of the best reasons to snort with derision over Gov. Jerry Brown’s claim to have whipped the state budget into shape is his decision to simply ignore the crisis posed by cost of unfunded health benefits for state retirees. This is from state Controller John Chiang in February:

“The unfunded actuarial accrued liability of providing health and dental benefits for state retirees is projected to be $63.84 billion over 30 years. ‘The current pay-as-we-go model of funding retiree health benefits is short-sighted and a recipe for undermining the fiscal health of future generations of Californians,’ Chiang said.  ‘However, today’s challenge won’t necessarily become tomorrow’s crisis if policymakers can muster the fiscal discipline to invest now so that we can pay tens of billions of dollars less later.'”

Yet another absurd flaw in the Affordable Care Act

So much for the controller’s plea. Brown includes zip for retiree health care in his 2013-14 budget. But maybe Jerry’s figured out something that only a USA Today columnist appears to have noticed so far: Obamacare is so incompetently crafted that it could allow states to offload retiree health-care obligations onto federal taxpayers.

“We already know that many state and local governments are in a financial hole that keeps getting deeper. A newly released report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) makes clear that, absent significant reforms, the fiscal picture for most state and local governments will steadily worsen through 2060. A main cause, in addition to Medicaid, is the cost of health care for state and local government retirees. These largely unfunded obligations are similar to the pressures on the federal government to fulfill its unrealistic Medicare promises.

“But there is a critical difference when it comes to how state and local governments can approach these obligations compared to the federal government. State and local governments can’t print money and typically have balanced budget requirements. More often than not, retiree health benefits are not guaranteed under state constitutions, are not insured, and are not protected by federal law, which means the systems in place can be changed.

“States that offer extremely generous health benefits for government retirees, and which have little to no pre-funding for those benefits, could choose to move their retirees into the Affordable Care Act’s new exchanges. State and local governments would likely continue to contribute by paying some premium support to individual retirees for healthcare, but the federal government and/or participants in the exchanges would pick up much of the tab. For these states, the exchanges offer a chance to shore up their finances and relieve state taxpayers of some of the looming burden of financing all those retirees. It could be a huge opportunity for states and localities in desperate need of fixing their long-term finances, and one that they should seriously consider in the coming months.”

The poster child for Obamacare? More like the canary in a coal mine

This is richly hilarious. But other states — at least well-run states that don’t need to slough off their responsibilities on the federal government — aren’t likely to love bailing out California. Even then, the Golden State has a secret weapon: the Obama administration’s intent to make California the example that sells the rest of America on the glory that is Obamacare. This is from a Thursday online post by Sandhya Somashekhar and Sarah Kliff on the Washington Post Wonkblog:

“President Obama will try to allay anxiety over his signature health-care law Friday during a visit to California, a state that the White House is highlighting as proof that the law is working.”

The Post bloggers’ definition of “working,” of course, is built on the lies told by California Covered about low insurance premiums. But maybe California will get lots of love in the implementation of Obamacare in coming years if the White House really wants the Golden State as poster child for the law.

So maybe Jerry Brown really should think about trying to shift the $64 billion in unfunded state retiree health care costs to the federal government. That can be California’s price for being the canary in the coal mine — not the poster child — for Obamacare.