The painful truth about Obamacare

This CNN headline says it all: "Bill Clinton calls Obamacare 'the craziest thing in the world,' later tries to walk it back".

Speaking at a Democratic rally in Flint, Michigan, the former president ripped into the Affordable Care Act (ACA) for flooding the health care insurance market and causing premiums to rise for middle-class Americans who do not qualify for subsidies. 

"So you've got this crazy system where all of a sudden 25 million more people have health care and then the people who are out there busting it, sometimes 60 hours a week, wind up with their premiums doubled and their coverage cut in half. It's the craziest thing in the world," Clinton said. 

On Tuesday, he tried to clean up his criticism. 

"Look, the Affordable Health Care Act did a world of good, and the 50-something efforts to repeal it that the Republicans have staged were a terrible mistake," Clinton said at a rally in Athens, Ohio. "We, for the first time in our history, at least are providing insurance to more than 90% of our people." 

"But there is a group of people -- mostly small business owners and employees -- who make just a little too much money to qualify for Medicaid expansion or for the tax incentives who can't get affordable health insurance premiums in a lot of places. And the reason is they're not in big pools," Clinton said. "So they have no bargaining power."

Notice he didn't really change what he was saying. All he did was pull back the hyperbole.

Strangely, the White House agreed with him:

The White House said again Tuesday there were changes they would like to see made to the ACA. 

"President Obama has of course acknowledged that with cooperation from Democrats and Republicans in Congress, there are some things that could be done to further strengthen the law. That's something that Sec. Clinton has vowed to pursue if she is elected President of the United States," press secretary Josh Earnest said in a briefing. 

At least they both agree the ACA was a flawed piece of legislation. Unfortunately, they still miss the mark on what is wrong with it.

Health insurance should only be for catastrophes, not everyday health care. As long as health insurance, regardless of whether it is public or private, is only a third party payment system, it will continue to suffer from "Tragedy of the Commons", whereby people will use it far more than necessary, and thereby increase health care costs for all of us.

On the other hand, we are starting to see a positive affect in the health insurance market, with higher deductibles on the more affordable insurance policies (although premiums have continued to rise). Is it possible that ACA could push us to where we need to be with health insurance? Only time will tell. The early signs are positive, albeit painful. But as the old medical saying goes, sometimes you have to cut to heal.