Attention, Secretary Burwell: If you really want ACA shoppers to consider more than price....

This is all very well, Secretary Burwell...

Burwell acknowledged that people have had some trouble picking the right policies, with some deciding based mainly on how expensive policies were, rather than on what’s covered.

But why then did I get a voicemail on Thursday from healthcare.gov telling me that "most people" can get plans for under $75? Here's the email version of that mantra (also sent Thursday):

The message here is that monthly premium price is all that matters. Based on current enrollment, a large subset of those who can find a plan for $75 per month can find only a bronze plan below that ceiling.  Most bronze plans have deductibles north of $6,000. Meanwhile, anyone who can get a bronze plan for under $75 is eligible for Cost Sharing Reduction (CSR) subsidies, which are available only with silver plans, which have higher premiums.

Forecast: A lot more Pennsylvanians will buy bronze plans in the ACA marketplace in 2015 than in 2014

Here's a prediction: the percentage of ACA private plan buyers in Pennsylvania who select bronze plans -- the lowest metal level, with the lowest monthly premiums and the highest deductibles -- is going to shoot up in 2015.

In 2014, among states with the lowest percentages of bronze plan buyers in the ACA marketplace, Pennsylvania was something of an anomaly.

Mistrust among the poor

I am reading Doing the Best I Can: Fatherhood in the Inner City by Kathryn Edin and Timothy J. Nelson, a compulsively readable in-depth account of how poor inner city men view and attempt to fulfill their responsibilities as fathers. The authors lived in Camden, NJ, one of the country's poorest cities, and spoke in depth to some 110 unmarried fathers in Camden and poor black and white neighborhoods of Philadelphia.

The title aptly captures the core idea: the men have shining ideals of fatherhood and marriage but hold themselves to much lower standards in keeping with their earning power and lack of strong ties to their children's mothers. Most beget children as the result of brief and haphazard relationships with women and are much more invested in their relationships with the children than with the children's mothers. Repeatedly, these mostly none-too-trustworthy men express a lack of trust in women.  And one expression of that lack of trust reminded me of a different all-too-common suspicion. Below, a father of three speaks: