Obamacare was signed into law 10 years ago today. Although the public’s attention is squarely focused on the coronavirus crisis, the law has been the dominant issue in our nation’s politics over the past decade, and it’s important to understand how it’s working.

Unfortunately, it’s not working at all. As employers and families know, Obamacare didn’t make healthcare more affordable. Premiums and costs have continued to rise. A main goal of improving the individual market for health insurance has largely failed. Despite the law’s grand aims of lowering costs and achieving universal coverage, it has mostly been a massive expansion of Medicaid. While not directly attributable to the law, life expectancy declined in the first three years of Obamacare coverage expansion — something that had not occurred since World War I and the Spanish flu epidemic a century ago.