In 2008, Barack Obama made American families a promise. His health care plan would "lower your premiums by $2,500 per family, per year."

This month, he stood in front of a crowd in Atlanta, campaigning for Sen. Jon Ossoff and Democratic governor candidate Keisha Lance Bottoms, and promised it again. "We've got to make sure that nobody has to worry about high healthcare premiums," he said.

Sixteen years after he signed the Affordable Care Act, Obama is out on the trail warning Americans about the cost of health insurance, as if somebody else had been in charge.

Here's how the first promise turned out.

In 2010, the year Obamacare became law, the average family health insurance premium through an employer was $13,770, according to Kaiser Family Foundation data. In 2026, it's $28,303. That's up 106%, nearly double the 55% rise in overall prices over the same stretch.

Families didn't save $2,500. Their premiums went up by more than $14,000.

The rest of the numbers follow the same path. The average deductible for single coverage went from $917 to $1,955. National health spending per person went from $8,402 in 2010 to $15,474 in 2024, according to the federal government's own figures. The actuarial firm Milliman estimates a typical family of four now spends $37,824 a year on health care, up 109% since the law took effect.

The individual market, the one Obamacare built, got hit hardest. In the 39 states that use HealthCare.gov, average monthly premiums jumped from $232 in 2013 to $476 in 2017. That's a 105% increase in four years, and in 62% of those states, premiums at least doubled.

Then there was the other promise: "If you like your health care plan, you can keep it." PolitiFact named it the Lie of the Year in 2013, after millions of Americans got cancellation notices for the plans they liked.

Obama's defenders will say premiums would have gone up anyway. Maybe so. But that was never what he promised. He sold the country a law that would cut premiums by $2,500 a family. If premiums were going to double no matter what, the law didn't do what he said it would. Either way, the promise was false.

So what's Obama's fix for premiums his law promised to bring down? Electing more Democrats.

Democrats have made it clear what they'll do with a majority. Their top health care priority is bringing back the expanded COVID-era Obamacare subsidies that expired after Republicans declined to extend them, at an estimated cost of $383 billion over ten years. House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries has said they'll extend the tax credits if they win.

Those subsidies don't make health care cheaper. They take the higher premiums and hand part of the bill to taxpayers. You pay at the doctor's office, and then you pay again on April 15.

Some Democrats want to go further. In battleground states this fall, Democratic candidates have brought back the pitch for Medicare for All. That would be a government-run system replacing the private insurance tens of millions of Americans still have through work.

It's the same plan every time: promise lower costs, pass a bigger program, watch costs climb, and then campaign on fixing the problem with an even bigger program.

In 2008, Obama promised families would save $2,500 a year. In 2026, the average family premium is $28,303.

He's still making the promise.