On the campaign trail Tuesday, former President Bill Clinton blasted the Affordable Care Act, better known to Americans as Obamacare.

Via CNN:

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.

Clinton later tried to walk back his comments. If you haven’t forgot, his wife is running for president. And the man she is trying to replace, whose named is attached to the law her husband criticized, has been actively campaigning on her behalf.

Perhaps this was just a lapse by Clinton, a moment of candor. The Obamacare horror stories aren’t exactly slowing down, after all. In fact, they are getting worse.

Overall, of people with ACA coverage in both 2015 and 2016, far more find it is becoming worse rather than better.

  • Twenty-three percent report that they have a worse selection in hospitals and doctors in 2016 while only 13 percent report better selection from 2015.
  • Thirty-four percent report that they feel less financially protected in 2016 while only 16 percent report an improvement in financial protection from 2015.
  • 37 percent report that insurance is a worse value to them in 2016, while only 27 percent report it is a better value from 2015.

Perhaps the former president thought he was merely stating the obvious. In any event, you can bet someone on the president’s team gave Clinton a curt message: pipe down on Obamacare.

Jon Miltimore is senior editor of Intellectual Takeout. Follow him on Facebook.

[Image Credit: Duncan Hull-Flickr- CC BY 2.0]