Hillary Clinton's strategy to get in front of voters and answer one-on-one type questions is not working out very well.
First, Clinton couldn't explain to an unemployed West Virginian why she was promising to put a lot of coal miners out of work. Now, Hillary can't explain why Obamacare fees are higher than promised, and are set to explode even higher next year.
During a recent town hall event, a small business owner explained to the Democratic front-runner that her health insurance has gone up so significantly for her family that the thought of providing benefits to her employees is secondary at this point.
"As a small business owner, not only are you trying to provide benefits to your employees, you're trying to provide benefits to yourself. I have seen our health insurance for my own family, go up $500 dollars a month in the last two years. We went from four hundred something, to nine hundred something. We're just fighting to keep benefits for ourselves. The thought of being able to provide benefits to your employees is almost secondary, yet to keep your employees happy, that's a question that comes across my desk all the time. I have to keep my employees as independent contractors for the most part really to avoid that situation, and so I have turnover"
"We do not qualify for a subsidy on the current health insurance plan. My question to you is not only are you looking out for people that can't afford healthcare, but I'm someone that can afford it, but it's taking a big chunk of the money I bring home."
To which Hillary responded, to make a long story short, that she knows healthcare costs are going up, and doesn't understand why that would ever be the case.
"What you're saying is one of the real worries that we're facing with the cost of health insurance because the costs are going up in a lot of markets, not all, but many markets and what you're describing is one of the real challenges."
"There's a lot of things I'm looking at to try to figure out how to deal with exactly the problem you're talking about. There are some good ideas out there but we have to subject them to the real world test, will this really help a small business owner or a family be able to afford it. What could have possibly raised your costs four hundred dollars, and that's what I don't understand."
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While we don't have all of the answers as to why the cost of insurance has skyrocketed under the Obamacare regime (actually scratch that, we know very well) we do know that more government subsidies will only continue to drive the costs up, and families and small businesses will continue to get burned as the government continues to tinker with the healthcare market, especially as more insurance providers finally do the math and pull out of Obamacare states as the largest American health insurer, UnitedHealth, has done in recent weeks.
Also, Clinton does have a good point in saying that ideas should be subjected to real world tests before being implemented. Perhaps the all-knowing planners should have tried that before spending billions on the Obamacare roll out, which is currently crumbling beneath its own weight.