Nancy Pelosi says there are three reasons the Democrats took back the House: “Health care, health care and health care.” She may not be exaggerating. Half the Democratic TV ads were on health care. By one estimate, Democratic candidates spent a reported $90 million on health care ads alone.

If that doesn’t surprise you, it should.

Barack Obama’s attempt to reform the private insurance system has been a disaster. The last year he was president, the percent of the population with private health insurance was actually lower than the year he was first elected. That’s despite spending more than $100 billion a year on subsidies.

Remember, Obama was elected in the middle of the Great Recession. If there had never been Obamacare, the percent of the population with private insurance would almost certainly have steadily grown as the economy recovered. With Obamacare, it contracted. The only increase has been in Medicaid.

What about the people who are newly insured through the (Obamacare) exchanges? Much of that increase was offset by a reduction in employer-provided coverage. Ironically, billions of dollars in subsidies have been encouraging the substitution of inferior insurance for what would have been much better coverage.