Obamacare’s new insurance marketplaces are scheduled to open for business on October 1, just a few days from now. For all the attention that date has received, it is less important than it might seem. Because new coverage won’t actually begin until January 1, most people looking to get insurance on their own won’t start shopping until the end of the year. But October 1 is still a milestone. And with Republicans threatening to let the government shut down or default if Obamacare takes full effect, it’s also a good moment to take a step back and assess the law—to think, in the broadest possible terms, about whether the reforms it has enacted are worthwhile.

The public remains unconvinced, although feelings are more mixed than Senator Ted Cruz would have you believe. While poll results vary depending on wording and source, people tend to have negative views of the law but don’t want Congress to defund it or block implementation; they support the component pieces but doubt the whole package will help them personally. One reason for the ambivalence is confusion: Most people don’t know what the law really does. Americans are also reacting to the unrelenting, frequently dishonest attacks by the law’s opponents. Two weeks ago, this campaign of misinformation reached a new level of absurdity when Betsy McCaughey, a discredited advocate from the 1990s, suggested that Obamacare would turn doctors into “government agents” demanding information about patients’ sex lives. The claim is not true. It went viral anyway.

Still, some misgivings about Obamacare are reactions to what’s actually in the law, because pretty much everybody can find something in it not to like. Liberals are disappointed the law doesn’t cover everybody—and won’t guarantee everybody’s insurance is adequate. That’s true. Conservatives are furious that Obamacare means higher taxes and more regulation. That’s also true. Some employers will alter company benefits or hours for part-timers. Some people will pay more for insurance. Some of the fancy new websites for buying insurance won't be fully functional, maybe for a while. These are real problems, even if they affect relatively few people.

But compromises, trade-offs, and, yes, unintended consequences have been part of every reform in American history. The minimum wage and child labor laws took money out of the pockets of employers. Social Security raised taxes on workers. Today, Americans cherish those programs because the good far outweighs the bad—because what the country gained, in economic security, health, and freedom, more than made up for what it lost. The same standard should apply today.

If you’re going to judge Obamacare, you can’t do it by looking simply at the minuses or the pluses, as even its advocates are prone to do. You need to look at the whole thing—to see what’s getting better and what’s getting worse. And you can’t do that until you ponder a question few bother to ask: What would the United States look like today if Obamacare hadn’t become law?