We’re finally getting close to the point where people can start buying insurance policies in the Obamacare exchanges, and all of the bluster about “rate shock” is running into reality. The bottom line is that the health care plan will be affordable for many people.

The main takeaway from an exhaustive new study of premiums on the Obamacare health insurance marketplaces: They’re generally going to be lower than expected, undercutting the persistent claims of “rate shock” by conservatives.

Marketplaces premiums are coming in below initial estimates, said the nonprofit, nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation in a new report released Thursday.

The expected monthly premium for a 40-year-old adult purchasing a silver-level plan (the baseline, which covers 70 percent of costs) on a marketplace had been $320, according to previous projections from the Congressional Budget Office. But in 15 of the 18 regions studied by Kaiser, the average premium will be below that — thus the study’s conclusion that the prices are going to be lower than anticipated.

“While premiums will vary significantly across the country, they are generally lower than expected,” the authors wrote.

In some states like Wisconsin, Republican administrations are trying to push the notion that premium prices are rising, but the information they are putting out there excludes the subsidies available to many people.

The key for everyone is to actually go into the health care exchanges once they are open and see for yourself what is available.

Predictions of an Obamacare apocalypse seem a little less credible today, thanks to California.

On Thursday, officials in that state offered the first detailed glimpse of what consumers buying health benefits on their own can expect to pay next year. And from the looks of things, these consumers will be getting a pretty good deal.

Based on the premiums that insurers have submitted for final regulatory approval, the majority of Californians buying coverage on the state’s new insurance exchange will be paying less—in many cases, far less—than they would pay for equivalent coverage today. And while a minority will still end up writing bigger premium checks than they do now, even they won’t be paying outrageous amounts. Meanwhile, all of these consumers will have access to the kind of comprehensive benefits that are frequently unavaiable today, at any price, because of the way insurers try to avoid the old and the sick.

Guys like Paul Krugman are heralding these new numbers.

If these numbers play out in other states as well, we could see a surge of people getting more affordable health insurance coverage.