The New York Times is wringing its hands over the damage being done to the city's artists and independent professionals by Obamacare. The sort of people who worship at the altar of Obama and who regard the Times and its editorial pronouncements (including those on Obamacare) as holy scripture. Cliff Their writes, "I haven't laughed so hard in a long time."

Anemona Hartocollis of the Gray Lady writes:

Many in New York's professional and cultural elite have long supported President Obama's health care plan. But now, to their surprise, thousands of writers, opera singers, music teachers, photographers, doctors, lawyers and others are learning that their health insurance plans are being canceled and they may have to pay more to get comparable coverage, if they can find it.

They are part of an unusual informal health insurance system that has developed in New York in which independent practitioners were able to get lower insurance rates through group plans, typically set up by their professional associations or chambers of commerce. That allowed them to avoid the sky-high rates in New York's individual insurance market, historically among the most expensive in the country.

But under the Affordable Care Act, they will be treated as individuals, responsible for their own insurance policies. For many of them, that is likely to mean they will no longer have access to a wide network of doctors and a range of plans tailored to their needs. And many of them are finding that if they want to keep their premiums from rising, they will have to accept higher deductible and co-pay costs or inferior coverage.

The old adage, "Be careful what you wish for," is taking on new meaning for these people. They believed President Obama's lies on keeping their health insurance and doctors. And being independent and professional, and therefore proud of their intelligence, they will have to blame their mistake on somebody else. That would be the One Who Walks Among Us, the Lightworker, the One We Have Been Waiting For. Hell hath no fury like an artist, or worse yet a lawyer, defrauded.

"I couldn't sleep because of it," said Barbara Meinwald, a solo practitioner lawyer in Manhattan.

Ms. Meinwald, 61, has been paying $10,000 a year for her insurance through the New York City Bar. A broker told her that a new temporary plan with fewer doctors would cost $5,000 more, after factoring in the cost of her medications.

Ms. Meinwald also looked on the state's health insurance exchange. But she said she found that those plans did not have a good choice of doctors, and that it was hard to even find out who the doctors were, and which hospitals were covered. "It's like you're blindfolded and you're told that you have to buy something," she said.

The chaos Obamacare is bringing could have wider implications for professional societies themselves:

Among those affected are members of the Authors Guild; the Advertising Photographers of America; the Suzuki Association of the Americas, a music teachers organization; the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators; the New York City Bar Association; and the New York County Medical Society. (One group, the Freelancers Union, negotiated a one-year exemption with the state. )

"One of the reasons to join a society is to get health insurance," said Dr. Paul N. Orloff, president of the New York County Medical Society.

So now that this important reason for joining a professional society is kaput, we can expect membership in these groups to drop. That's not going to make any new friends for Obama, either. I don't know about you, but I would rather not have the New York City Bar Association ticked off at me.

So will these deep blue people turn on Obama? Maybe, but it will take some time:

It is an uncomfortable position for many members of the creative classes to be in. "We are the Obama people," said Camille Sweeney, a New York writer and member of the Authors Guild. Her insurance is being canceled, and she is dismayed that neither her pediatrician nor her general practitioner appears to be on the exchange plans. What to do has become a hot topic on Facebook and at dinner parties frequented by her fellow writers and artists.

"I'm for it," she said. "But what is the reality of it?"

Ah yes, reality. That's always the problem for liberalism, isn't it?

Update. Ed Lasky reminds us:

Nancy Pelosi waxed rhapsodic in 2010 as she imagined the benefits of Obamacare: "Think of an economy where people could be an artist or a photographer or a writer without worrying about keeping their day job in order to have health insurance."

More here : http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/creative-destruction_751425.html#  from a few months ago