FREE STUFF! OBAMACARE EDITION: Despite subsidies, the poor are spending big on Obamacare.  A new study by the Urban Institute–quietly released just prior to Christmas–reveals that lower income Americans are paying about 10-20 percent of their income on Obamacare premiums.

The Urban Institute study would normally be an interesting, albeit dry, topic of discussion in a class on health economics or the limits of tackling huge challenges through public policy. The findings, though, should signal a serious warning alarm for the future of ObamaCare.

The fundamental vulnerability of ObamaCare is that relatively healthy individuals would decide that the costs of even subsidized coverage exceeded its benefits. According to the Urban Institute study, even relatively healthy individuals are paying over 15 percent of their income for ObamaCare health insurance plans.

The costs for insuring those with even modest health care needs are in effect subsidized by these healthier individuals. If these healthier Americans decide that even the subsidized costs are too high, they will likely opt out of the program entirely. This will push the costs of those with more health care needs even higher, creating what economists warn could be a “death spiral,” where both premium and out-of-pocket costs skyrocket.

Gosh, who could ever have predicted that Obamacare would raise premiums, cause a death spiral and ultimately, the demise of private health insurance?