Fact-checking debate moderator on health costs

Martha Raddatz, one of the moderators for the Democratic debate Saturday night, is a very savvy foreign correspondent and has spent a lot of time in the Middle East.   So I'll give her a slight pass on not being up to par on health care costs.   But her question had a false premise that implied Obamacare was responsible for rising health care costs.   And that simply is not true.   Here's her question: 

"Secretary Clinton, the Department of Health and Human Services says more than 17 million Americans who were not insured now have health coverage because of Obamacare. But for Americans who already had health insurance the cost has gone up 27 percent in the last five years while deductibles are up 67 percent, health care costs are rising faster than many Americans can manage."  She then asked how Clinton would fix the law. 

Let's bring a little reality here.

1.  The ACA went into effect on January 1, 2014.   So a 27% increase in premiums over five years (2009-2014) straddles a period that includes four years before Obamacare and only one year after.    How is that cost rise due to Obamacare?

2.  A 27% increase over five years is a slower rate than was occurring in health care costs in prior years.  Between 2004-2009 premiums rose by 34%, and between 1999-2004 they rose by 72%.

Raddatz's question improperly vilifies Obamacare in a way that is inaccurate and harmful.   We get enough of that from Republican politicians who have tried mightily to kill it.  Yes, rates are going up, but they are rising at a slower rate than before. 

The truth is that, if allowed to function as it was designed, Obamacare saves money while also providing more health care for more people.   What we have now is the version left after both SCOTUS and a Republican congress chipped away some of the cost-saving measures.   And even so it is slowing the increase of our health care costs. 

Ralph