A crucial mistake by the designers of the Orwellian-named “Affordable Care Act” is that they thought they could design a health care plan. They felt they could re-engineer how a whole country would get health coverage, impose their plans, ignore economics, decide on new winners and new losers – and that they could foresee the consequences.

But Obamacare’s designers didn’t foresee the Robinsons of Texas. According to NPR, neither did the Robinsons.

“Nick Robinson had turned to Obamacare after he lost his job last summer. He had been working as a youth pastor, and the job included benefits that covered him, his two young daughters, and his wife, Rachel, a wedding photographer.

“Nick says he wasn't too nervous at first, because everyone was healthy. Then, he recalls, they found out Rachel was pregnant.”

Nick thought that Obamacare’s government-run “exchanges” selling taxpayer-subsidized coverage would help:

“ ‘I was like, oh, here's the answer! This is simple!’ Nick says. ‘It's a cheaper insurance plan; there's no pre-existing condition stuff.’

“Rachel was skeptical, but Nick went online and started shopping. He had trouble getting through the glitchy website at first, but eventually he picked a plan just for his wife. It was a gold plan HMO through Blue Cross Blue Shield for about $375 a month.

“In January, as soon as the plan began, Nick printed out a list of obstetricians from the plan's website. ‘I handed it over to Rachel, fully confident, fully feeling like I had accomplished something for her; I had come through for my wife,’ he says. ‘This whole Obamacare thing was going to work!’

“Rachel recalls two days in January when she sat down and called every doctor on the list of 28. According to her, most of the practices told her, in one way or another, that they didn't take the plan.

“ ‘Some would just come right out and say, “We don't take Obamacare,”’ she says. ‘Or the best one was, “The doctor takes it here at the actual practice, but whatever hospital you use ... does not take that insurance.”’”

So the family was paying nearly $400 a month for insurance that didn’t work. NPR goes on:

“Nick got even more frustrated when he called Blue Cross and was told those doctors should take the plan.

“ ‘How could this not be working?’ he says. ‘The United States government has set this up. It's this whole big deal.’”

How could this not be working when the federal government set it up? Mr. Robinson answered his own question: The United States government is not competent to plan out a functioning health care system.

One of the consequences the Obamacare architects did not foresee is that the Robinsons found a solution on their own. NPR reports they dropped their Obamacare plan:

“They just stopped paying the premium.

“They signed on to be in the midwife's care. Nick signed up for a nonprofit, Christian-oriented cost-sharing plan. The Robinsons will pay cash upfront and request reimbursement later.”

They’re happy, says Nick, but “I'm extremely confident that that's not what the architects of this plan had in mind.”