Here is a partial transcript and video of Hillary Clinton masterfully telling Teresa O’Donnell to keep shopping on the exchange for her health insurance. People are claiming she didn’t shop on the exchange (including David Axelrod), whereas you can see right in her answer she answered “yes” to Hillary’s question, that she did in fact shop on the exchange, and could not afford it.
Teresa O’Donnell, an office manager in Ohio, told Clinton about how her monthly costs for health care insurance for her family of four went from $490 to $1,081 a month.
“I know Obama told us that we’d be paying a little more. But doubling, over doubling, my health insurance cost has not been ‘a little more.’ It has been difficult to come up with that kind of payment every month. I would like to vote Democratic, but it’s cost me a lot of money, and I’m just wondering if Democrats really realize how difficult it’s been on working-class Americans to finance Obamacare?” O’Donnell asked.
Clinton and O’Donnell discussed by what means the insurance was purchased.
“So you were going to a broker and buying a health insurance policy? And in effect, it nearly tripled after you went onto the exchange and bought a policy under the Affordable Care Act? Is that right?” Clinton asked.
“We could not do that. It was much more expensive than just purchasing private insurance from an insurance company,” O’Donnell said.
“So you’re still buying the private insurance directly?” Clinton said.
“Yes,” O’Donnell said.
“OK, well, first of all let me say, I very much want to get the cost down and that is going to be my mission because I do think that for many, many people, but there are exceptions, like what you’re telling me, having the Affordable Care Act has reduced cost, has created a real guarantee of insurance, because if you’d had a pre-existing condition under the old system you wouldn’t have gotten affordable insurance, so it’s done a lot of really good things, but it has become increasingly clear that we’re going to have to get the cost down,” Clinton said.
Clinton later recommended to O’Donnell to keep shopping.
“And one thing that I would like you to do, and I’m not saying it’s going to make a difference, but I would like you to just go shopping on that exchange,” Clinton said.
And she ended this by saying “I am going to do everything I can to try to get the cost down”, without any wonky policy details, or nuance, that she is so lauded for, other than “more competition”. How she is going to get these costs down?
Here’s Axelrod spreading the meme that the woman never shopped on the exchange. So what was the tripled cost compared to?