JAMES TARANTO: The Pettiest Victim: The New York Times’s idea of an ObamaCare horror story.

At first we were pleasantly surprised that the Times, whose editorial page has been unwavering in its pro-ObamaCare propagandizing, was giving space to an opposing point of view, but after reading the piece, we suspect it’s a put-on. . . .

We were taken with the irony of Gottlieb’s liberal friends, surely committed feminists to a man, advising her to seek escape from ObamaCare’s shackles in the bonds of matrimony. We tweeted to that effect–whereupon fellow Twitter denizen David Pinsen made a connection we’d missed.

It seems the same Lori Gottlieb was the author of a long article that appeared in The Atlantic’s March 2008 issue titled “Marry Him!” and subtitled “The case for settling for Mr. Good Enough.” In 2010 she expanded it into a book, with the same title, sans exclamation point. (Its publication prompted an amusing blog post from someone using the moniker “The Last Psychiatrist.”)

So the woman who encouraged women to settle now won’t even marry Mr. Good Enough With Benefits. Are we to believe another perverse consequence of ObamaCare is that it’s inducing single women to become even pickier?

To be sure, Gottlieb’s story does illustrate the fraudulence of ObamaCare. A law that is supposed to reduce medical costs is increasing hers considerably. Contrary to President Obama’s promise, she doesn’t get to keep her doctor, which means she doesn’t get to keep her plan either, in any meaningful sense.

And contrary to the latest equivocation of the ObamaCare claim–which the Times advances right over on the editorial page–her new plan isn’t “better” and includes worthless (to her) provisions like maternity coverage. But the way she frames her complaints is so off-putting, you have to wonder if the Times intended the article’s publication as a joke at ObamaCare critics’ expense.

I doubt the Times editors are possessed of that much subtlety.