Speaking in San Jose, CA on Friday morning, President Barack Obama repeated the false claim, circulated by the mainstream media and the left, that insurance rates in California had fallen as a result of Obamacare with the state’s implementation of the Affordable Care Act’s new health insurance exchanges. In fact, insurance rates have skyrocketed relative to alternative insurance plans available in the private market post-Obamacare.
As Wynton Hall noted last week, Obamacare will raise the cost of health insurance policies in California by a “staggering 64% to 146%.” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi acknowledged as much in a backhand fashion, denying Thursday that she had promised that “everybody in the country would have a lower premium.” (In fact, she made precisely such a promise–“Everybody will have lower rates”–in 2012, as Guy Benson notes.)
The false claim about lower insurance rates in California appears to be the new version of Obama’s false claim that 40% of all gun sales are private, which he deployed often in the gun control debate.
Obama acknowledged that there were “some folks who are out there who are feeling increased costs,” but put the blame on the health insurance industry and his political opponents, as well as businesses for shifting costs onto employees.
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