CHART 2: How bad it was before Obamacare

We may need a reminder of how disastrous our health insurance system was before Congress passed Obamacare. Just one way of looking at this is that health care spending as a percent of family income was already an astronomical 19% in 2009 but was projected to be 30% by 2019 and 48% by 2029 — unless something was done.

This reality is particularly lost when discussing the estimated 2% to 4% of Americans who have private insurance plans that will ultimately be canceled because of higher coverage standards set by the Affordable Care Act. Many of those people will find they have even better options in the exchanges, and at better prices. But even the small percentage of folks who find themselves paying more for insurance should be seen in the broader context of health care and insurance costs that were already skyrocketing out of control, for all of us, before Obamacare was passed.