Does Obamacare Work? (The Debate Version)

For the last seven years, the Democrats have been telling the country that Obamacare is great.  Millions of people now have health insurance who did not previously have coverage, or so we are told.  The reality is that about twelve million people have coverage from the individual market which is sold on the healthcare exchanges.  More than eight million of those people lost their policies, however, when Obamacare became effective, and the number is estimated to be closer to ten million.  (The government has never released any statistics on the final number of people who lost coverage.)  There are more people on Medicaid than before Obamacare, but none of the endless regulations enacted for Obamacare were necessary for that expansion.  Meanwhile, hundreds of billions of dollars is being spent, huge deficits are being incurred, millions of jobs have either been eliminated or prevented, and the economy has been burdened in a way that has prevented a return to healthy economic growth.  On top of all this, the cost of insurance has risen in dramatic fashion.  And even those with policies often cannot afford to actually see a doctor because of the extremely high deductibles and co-pays.  So we have a massive and costly expansion of government with no improvement in the American healthcare system.  Through it all, however, the Democrats' mantra has been that Obamacare is a wonderful success.  If the Republicans try to limit or repeal Obamacare, the Democrats mock them and claim that such a move would be a disaster.

So what can one make of last night's Democrat debate?  Bernie Sanders wants to junk Obamacare and replace it with yet another system he calls "Medicare for all".  Hillary Clinton also wants to change Obamacare, although she wants to keep a big part of it.  In one night, Obamacare went from being "perfect" to being consigned to the trash by the Democrats.

Can we all now agree that Obamacare does not work?  I hope so.