THE WEEKLY STANDARD has long observed that Obamacare, which President Obama pitched as a great deal for Americans of all stripes, is really only for the near-poor and near-elderly—at the expense of the middle class and the young. While only a small minority has benefitted from the 2,400-page overhaul, a large majority has been hit with higher costs and diminished freedom. 

Obamacare is slated to cost more than $1.7 trillion over the next decade (for its insurance-coverage provisions alone) in large part because it funnels massive sums of money to the chosen few. Take a 64-year-old couple living in Miami and making $23,500 a year. As Jed Graham writes in an Investor’s Business Daily op-ed—which contrasts Obamacare with Scott Walker’s conservative alternative—that couple can get insurance through Obamacare that is worth about $24,000 while paying for only $936 of it themselves.  The remaining $23,000 or so is financed at their fellow Americans’ expense. In other words, Obamacare essentially doubles the couple’s income (while funneling half of it to an insurance company).