Obamacare Turns 12: Is Healthcare More Affordable? | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This post appears here courtesy of the John Locke Foundation. The author of this post is Brian Balfour.

    On this day 12 years ago, President Obama signed into law the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare.

    Given the name, it's more than reasonable to look back and evaluate whether or not healthcare has become more affordable to determine if the law lived up to its promises.

    Given that Obama's promise that "If you like your healthcare plan, you can keep it," was awarded the "Lie of the Year" in 2013 even from the left-wing PolitiFact, one is rightfully suspicious of the law living up to its "affordable care" moniker.

    After promising that his bill would lower healthcare costs by $2,500 per family, what did Obama's bill actually do to healthcare costs? This 2020 Health Affairs article provides several answers.

    Their conclusion? "The ACA did not stem high and rapidly rising health care costs for all Americans."

    Indeed, already rising healthcare costs accelerated after the passage of Obamacare.

    "Measured in inflation-adjusted dollars, health care spending grew at an average annual rate of 2.7 percent between 2003 and 2010, and 2.8 percent between 2010 and 2018."

    And the $2,500 savings per family? Not so much.

    "In 2019, the average monthly premium per enrollee in the individual market was $515, up from $217 in 2011. After controlling for inflation, that is an average annual growth rate of 11.6 percent."

    And not only have premiums risen far faster than overall inflation, your out-of-pocket deductibles have risen significantly as well: "In 2020, the average deductible for a silver plan offered on Healthcare.gov was $4,500, up from $2,425 in 2014."

    Unsurprisingly, spending on healthcare is now chewing up more of the nation's economy: "As a share of the national economy, health spending grew from 17.3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) to 17.7 percent between 2010 and 2018."

    Moreover, this Kaiser Family Foundation analysis shows that annual family premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance rose to an average of $22,221 in 2021, an increase of 47% since 2011. Premium growth more than doubled the inflation growth of 19% during that time.

    Naturally, rising premiums and deductibles are taking a bigger bite out of workers' paychecks. According to this Commonwealth Foundation study: "Premium contributions and deductibles in employer health plans accounted for 11.6 percent of median household income in 2020, up from 9.1 percent a decade earlier."

    At the time of its passage, critics of Obamacare were dismissed as partisans and racists. But criticism was based on what was obvious for anyone with open eyes and clear minds could predict: a greater government involvement in the health insurance and medical care industries would increase costs rather than decrease them.

    Obamacare was sold on multiple lies. You couldn't keep your plan if you liked it, and it most certainly did not make healthcare more affordable.