At a campaign event in Virginia yesterday, Hillary Clinton appeared dumbfounded when a small business owner told her of the drastic rise in costs for health insurance under Obamacare.  Jena Lifhits of the Weekly Standard summarizes (video below):

"A $400 increase, assuming you didn't have some terrible healthcare event, which it doesn't sound like you did," Clinton said at a campaign event in Virginia. "I don't understand."

The voter told Clinton that her health insurance plan had a rigid income cut-off that was preventing her from qualifying for subsidies.

"I have seen our health insurance for my own family go up $500 a month in the last two years," the voter said. "We went from $400-something to $900-something … we're just fighting to keep benefits for ourselves."

The woman said that she was also finding it difficult to provide benefits for her employees.

"The thought of being able to provide benefits to your employees is almost secondary. Yet, to keep your employees happy, that's a question that comes across my desk all the time," she said.

Clinton offered numerous solutions but avoided addressing the source of the problem.

"What you're saying is one of the real worries that we're facing with the cost of health insurance because the costs are going up in a lot of markets. Not all, but many markets," Clinton said. "I think that the Affordable Care Act is a big step forward for the vast majority of Americans, but we have to look at out of pocket costs, copays, deductibles, premiums."

Back in 1993, when Hillarycare threatened to cause the same sorts of problems, Rodham Clinton had a much more forthright answer:

"I can't be responsible for every undercapitalized entrepreneur in America," Mrs. Clinton said in 1993, responding to charges that her plan would bankrupt businesses and cut employment.

For some reason, she didn’t ask the woman in Virginia how well capitalized she is.

“Looking at” out-of-pocket costs, co-pays, deductibles, premiums is unlikely to help small business owners, when the fundamental design of Obamacare encourages the healthy to avoid signing up and the unhealthy to take advantage.