If you like your Obamacare...

Every week, it seems, new revelations about the Affordable Care Act make the news, and most of them are highly disturbing.

Just last week, the man considered the architect of Obamacare, Ezekiel Emanuel, acknowledged that despite the Obama administration’s many claims that if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor, that may not necessarily be the case.

In fact, there are a variety of ways that may not be true. For starters, the health-care law offers several plans through a federal exchange, and each of those plans provides selective access to certain health-care providers.

If you buy into a plan that doesn’t select your doctor, you can’t keep your doctor unless you find another way to do so, and it may cost a lot more than you are currently paying.

But there is a two-way street involved here. Many doctors are also declining to provide care that involves compensation through the federal plans that are offered, specifically because the compensation will not cover their costs.

It’s not hard to imagine situations where people with Obamacare insurance may not have convenient access to health care. Rural Americans in particular may find themselves geographically distanced from adequate care. Once again, the law is not playing out the way it has been sold to the public for several years.

Other news reports of the week involved the shockingly high deductibles, co-pays and other out-of-pocket costs associated with the federally sponsored plans. The New York Times reports that policies offered through the federal exchange and in many states have deductibles topping $5,000 for individuals and $10,000 for a couple.

People seeking the most affordable premiums are the ones who would be exposed to the highest deductibles. That was a model that may have worked well for wealthy people who wanted catastrophic insurance to protect their wealth, knowing full well they could afford high deductibles.

But now this model is being foisted on low-income earners who certainly can’t come up with the cash to cover high deductibles in order to put their insurance to work.

The Times quotes an Idaho freelance writer who observed that “the deductibles were so high — $4,000 to $6,000 a year — that it defeats the purpose of having insurance.”

Remember, the main drivers behind the Affordable Care Act were to get the uninsured on insurance and to curb rising medical costs by getting those people care earlier rather than later, when their needs could be far more expensive.

But despite the so-called “individual mandate” to buy insurance, many people — particularly young healthy people — aren’t going to do so because for them it doesn’t make financial sense, even if they are subjected to a tax penalty.

That’s why no one should be surprised that only 364,000 people have signed up — just a third of a Dec. 1 target. It’s not just the seriously flawed website used to access the federal exchange — it’s the underlying economics. And even the claim that 364,000 people have signed up is somewhat doubtful, because “signing up” doesn’t necessarily mean applicants have acquired an actual policy that is in effect.

Pile on top of that the fact that Obamacare has led to 5.2 million Americans having their existing policies canceled, and it becomes apparent that the law is defeating its main purpose of getting more people insured.

Editorials represent the majority opinion of the Daily Inter Lake’s editorial board.