ObamaCare: sold to the highest bidder.

• Position: YOUR LIFE

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is like the television show "Storage Wars; where unclaimed items in storage lockers are auctioned off after a quick peek through the door, maintains Marilyn M. Singleton, who sits on the Board of Directors of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, Tucson, Ariz. "People bid top dollar and hope for the best. Some find a gold mine, but the unseasoned bidders usually receive a Pandora's Box."

The Center for Public Policy, Washington, D.C., a nonpartisan public interest think tank, estimates that $120,000,000 was spent lobbying for health reform. Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) alone spent $26,000,000 lobbying for ObamaCare in 2009. and PhRMA has spent well over $100,000,000 on an ad campaign promoting health care reform legislation.

Upon passage of the bill, the stocks of some of the largest health insurers, including Cigna, United-Health Group, WellPoint, and Aetna climbed. Moreover, points out Singleton, major makers of electronic health records (EHR) systems lobbied hard, locking out smaller competitors. Chicago-based Allscripts Healthcare Solutions' former CEO Glen Tullman, who had served as health technology adviser to Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign in 2008, made more than $200,000 in contributions to the campaign, and was a frequent guest at the White House during 2009. With some nudging from the stimulus mandate for EHRs, annual sales of Allscripts more than doubled from $548,000,000 in 2009 to $1,440,000,000 in 2012. Center, another software purveyor, spent $400,000 lobbying for EHR. During the same three-year period, sales rose 60%.

Of course, adds Singleton, AARP CEO Barry Rand wrote that the Affordable Care Act was "vital" for the nation's seniors. This makes no sense when ObamaCare in fact cut $500,000,000,000 from the popular Medicare Advantage program. It seems the PPACA's passage was vital to AARP's Medi-gap insurance products--which people with Medicare Advantage do not need.

The presumptive owners of the mystery storage locker--Congress--can change the contents at will. Congress, in a moment of bipartisan backbone or populist pandering, voted that their staff would be on the Health Insurance Exchange. Under ObamaCare, if an employee purchases a health plan through the...