Ah yes, it sounds so wonderful — free health care that gives us all more options, more access, and better care.

Too bad it’s not true.

If you’re wondering exactly how the 2,000-plus page Senate monstrosity — known in the world of spin as health care reform — will impact real people like you and me, take a moment to read this sobering piece by John Locke Foundation president John Hood. Hood’s health insurance choice is targeted for destruction by ObamaCare, even though Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) and other consumer-driven options have proven successful at keeping down costs and preserving choice. (emphasis is mine)

All three savings vehicles – HSAs, HRAs, and FSAs – store cash in banks for use in paying medical bills. But they have key differences. HSAs are the personal property of employees and can only be set up in conjunction with an approved insurance policy. Unspent funds stay in personal accounts and can be taken with workers as they change jobs. HRAs are actually owned by the employer, not the employees, while FSAs are personal account but cannot accumulate unspent balances. At the end of the year, they revert back to the employer.

These consumer-driven options are the most successful products in health insurance at the moment. By making families more cost-conscious and reducing the amount of insurance claims, they’ve resulted in substantial savings and low or no annual increases in premiums for the insurance component, unlike what’s going on in the rest of the market.

What Congress should do right now is change the law to give more Americans access to these options and convert all FSAs to HSAs, so that there will no longer be a “use-it-or-lose-it” problem with flex accounts.

Instead, of course, Congress is about to impose such severe limitations on all these options that they will likely disappear. If ObamaCare passes, in other words, I and my JLF colleagues will lose our current health care plans. There’ll be nothing “optional” about it.

I would fork over buckets of cash to see President Obama try to defend ObamaCare to John Hood.