Obamacare was a badly designed law. We could have achieved gains in insurance coverage without Obamacare’s regulation-heavy approach; we could have addressed the health-care system’s discrete problems without trying to overhaul it from Washington, D.C. Those without access to employer health plans could have been given enough money to buy a policy that protected them against catastrophic expenses — and that offered more protection if they put some of their own income into the policy.

More Americans think the law has hurt them than think it has helped them. And as flawed as the law already appears, worse days may be ahead for it.

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