The basis of a conservative vision for health care has to be the realization that using insurance to cover the costs of routine care is folly, to paraphrase something Ramesh said years ago. That’s why the high-deductible plans with low premiums are so important. They are the embryo of a sustaintable health-care system in which people cover routine care out of pocket, and insurance is reserved for catastrophic care. That’s also why Obamacare makes such plans illegal. A socialized system (which includes a system in which insurance companies are regulated like public utilties for the socialization of health-care costs) has to eliminate competing market models.

Conservatives are rightly focused on efforts to defund, delay, repeal and replace. They should also make sure that Obamacare doesn’t kill the embryo of a system that can actually work: the high-deductible low-premium plans.