Thats nice, but what you are calling BS on is not what was claimed in the text you quoted. The quote stated “about 50 percent more Americans think the ACA has hurt them rather than helped them.”
If you had bothered to follow the link, you would have seen that the most recent Gallup poll concluded:
51 percent of Americans said ACA had no effect
29 percent of Americans said ACA hurts
18 percent of Americans said ACA helps
Dividing 29 percent by 18 percent indicates that 61 percent more Americans think that ACA has hurt them rather than helped them. As the faults in ACA become more apparent over time, expect that gap to widen.
Here is the link again.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/195383/americans-negative-positive-aca.aspx
You are right about that. It was designed to blow up the cost of health care, and it succeeded marvelously. Here is a chart that shows that average premiums increased 74.8 percent since the law took effect in 2013.
http://www.heritage.org/~/media/infographics/2016/04/bg3109/bg-obamacare-in-six-years-chart-1.ashx
However, if you go back and look at the propaganda used to promote ACA, it was largely advertised as saving money for the average taxpayer. I believe average savings of $2,500 per family were promised. Instead, total costs skyrocketed.
One issue with ACA that has not been discussed on this thread is the impact on employment. The rule stating that employers with more than 50 employees had to provide health care to employees who worked 30 hours or more lead to massive shifts in employment. People who were employed in hourly work saw their hours reduced to 29 hours per week or less. For these people, ACA provided an effective 20+ percent reduction in their earnings.
We have a friend that was directly impacted by this. She had insurance through her husband, but worked an hourly position to pay for private treatments for a handicapped child. When her hours were cut to accommodate the ACA, she could not longer afford the private treatments. Because of ACA, the parent was out of the workforce, the child no longer received treatments they believed were valuable, and a vendor lost a customer.