Kevin Drum catches Stephen Spruiell misunderstanding the point of health-care reform. The 3M company has decided that it will phase out its retirement health-care plan because its retirees can get cheaper, better care on the private market through exchanges. The ACA doesn't even affect 3M's existing plans -- it's just made the competition more effective. As Drum writes, "Using this as some kind of black mark against ACA is crazy."
What's amazing to me is the conservative response to this policy, which appears to have cut costs for a business, given consumers more choice about their health-care plan, and improved market competition. They call this "a new payload of bad PR." It's like they don't remember what conservatives are supposed to believe in except for attacking the Obama administration. Moreover, this is another reason why the whole "Obama is anti-business" spin is so dramatically wrong: Here's an example of a company that's able to become more competitive thanks to the administration's signature policy proposal.
-- Tim Fernholz
