Chris Smith: “While the Affordable Care Act has been in effect since 2010, it has only provided actual access to health insurance…”

“While the Affordable Care Act has been in effect since 2010, it has only provided actual access to health insurance benefits through the exchange and Medicaid expansion for a little over 3 years--beginning in 2014. In that short period of time, however, serious problems and flaws have been exposed, yet in recent months the law's systemic problems have been trivialized or ignored by many. Today, buying an insurance policy on the exchanges with high premiums, high copays, and most importantly, exceedingly high deductibles make the actual utilization of health benefits far costlier than originally advertised. Americans were told repeatedly that the ACA would save up to $2,500 in premium payments per family per year. President Obama said: ``I will sign a universal health care bill into law by the end of my first term as president that will cover every American and cut the cost of a typical family's premium by up to $2,500 a year.'' That didn't happen--not even close. Nationwide, since 2016, gross premiums before subsidies in the Bronze-priced tier rose a whopping 27 percent, silver 24 percent and gold 32 percent. That should come as no surprise. As early as August 2012, Politifact found President Obama's promise to be untrue and labeled the statement a ``promise broken'' in a Politifact report entitled: NO cut in premiums for typical family.…”