This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, March 2, 2017.

I'm Caleb Brown.

An underappreciated element of the various attempts to end the Affordable Care Act

may be how much the law affects quality of care.

New polling data from U-Gov and the Cato Institute shows that quality of care can drive support

and opposition to the law.

Michael Cannon and Emily Ekins offer their thoughts.

So ever since Obamacare has taken effect,

patient groups have been complaining about the quality of coverage.

They say that Obamacare was supposed to eliminate discrimination

against the sick.

But they're seeing it in Obamacare.

They're seeing it in that the coverage is getting worse for sick people.

Ductables are getting higher.

Cost sharing is getting higher.

It's harder to find out what providers are in your network

and when you do find out, it's very few providers

because the networks are getting narrower and health plans are making

their benefits very opaque which really frustrates sick patients more than the healthy patients

who just care about premiums.

Well, it turns out that economists have started studying this.

They have looked at drug formularies in the Obamacare exchange plans.

...