Absolutely, yet somehow Obama managed to make it worse. At issue were the 15% who get their insurance on the individual market. He's made that situation much worse. The premiums have tripled and our choices were cut. Some areas have no choices at all now. That's screwed up
It's not just "somehow" it happened. Very specific things have happened to cause it, and it's not all that secretive if you properly read up on it.
Two big items, original design flaws of the law, and then intentional undermining of the law by opponents.
Health economists warned Ds from the start that the mandate penalties were too low and the subsides not broad enough. But those were the compromises made to get it passed (thinking it could get patched later.) We've discussed this ad nauseum.
Second, the facets built in to the law to limit increases have been attacked and underfunded. By whom you ask? Well the people
you keep voting for of course!
Eg Reinsurance and Risk corridors.
http://www.kff.org/health-reform/is...sk-adjustment-reinsurance-and-risk-corridors/
Long, wonky article, but I'll point you to the conclusion:
"Risk corridors were intended to reduce overall financial uncertainty for insurers, though they largely did not fulfill that goal following congressional changes to the program. Reinsurance compensated plans for their high-cost enrollees, and by the nature of its financing provided a subsidy for individual market premiums generally over a three-year period. Premium increases are expected to be higher in 2017 in part due to the end of the reinsurance program."