Liberals are already crowing about the "low" cost of health insurance policies for young people in the California ObamaCare Insurance Exchange.  The problem is that the "low" rates are actually phenomenally high when you realize that they are compulsory.

If you go to the California ObamaCare website, you'll see that a 24-year-old single person earning $35,000 will pay $230/month, which is $2,760/year, or roughly 8.6% of his pretax income.

Therefore, for those young people who were eschewing insurance, these "low" rates correspond to a pay cut of more than 8.6%.

Even worse, the $230 is not cheap compared to currently available private offerings.  If you go to the eHealthInsurance website -- note this is not an endorsement of eHealthInsurance; they were just used as a quick way to get currently available policy rates -- you'll find 52 offerings ranging from $95 to $368 a month, with an average price of $190/month, which is 21% less than the "low" ObamaCare cost.  Of the 52 policies, 31 cost less than $200/month and 18 cost less than $150/month.

Now, to be fair, the coverage varies dramatically, with the lower costs tending to be associated with so-called catastrophic policies that don't cover day-to-day medical expenses but do cover the big-ticket items like emergency surgeries.  But young people are the group where it makes sense to effectively self-insure for the low-cost health items while using a catastrophic policy to ensure that their savings are not wiped out in case of a major medical emergency.  The point is that under ObamaCare, young people are forced to pay a large fraction of their wages for insurance they probably don't need.

Only in the mind of a liberal is being forced by the government to pay more than you should for something you probably don't need a "low" cost.

You can read more of Tom's rants at his blog, Conversations about the obvious.  Feel free to follow him on Twitter.