It may be hard to remember it at times, but the official name of President Obama’s signature health care legislation is the Affordable Care Act, not ObamaCare. That moniker was affixed to the monstrosity passed by the Democratic Congress in 2010 in the hope that it would lower health care costs even though few of its architects had any idea of what it would actually mean. For the initial period of its launch, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s famous comment about the bill needing to be passed before anyone knew what was in it, primarily applied to the impact that the various mandates it imposed on businesses, institutions, and individuals would have on the country. But now it is increasingly clear that whatever it might have accomplished in allowing some to acquire insurance while causing millions of others to lose their coverage, the one thing we know for sure that it hasn’t done is lower costs. That was confirmed again on Monday when the administration announced double-digit price hikes for individuals who have purchased ObamaCare policies.

It is instructive to remember that when critics said last year that ObamaCare prices would soon skyrocket, the administration dismissed such predictions as partisan scaremongering. But, now that it has announced the hikes, expect to hear about how it wasn’t as bad as it might have been or efforts to place the blame on insurance companies or the rising cost of drugs. But whatever the excuses that might be found for the increases, the plain fact is that the notion that allowing a federal bureaucracy to begin to control the health care industry would lower prices rather than set off a long term sharp increase was a myth. Moreover, those who were promised cheap insurance were sold a bill of goods. No matter how the White House chooses to spin this development, it’s obvious that the Affordable Care Act is becoming a lot less affordable, even for those who were net winners as opposed to the many who turned out to be net losers.

That this news comes as the nation waits to hear the verdict of the U.S. Supreme Court in the King v. Burwell case is doubly ironic. If the court applies the letter of the law to decide the case, it will end the federal subsidies to consumers in states without their own health care exchanges. That will create a chaotic situation in which up to seven million people who benefitted from the bill will find themselves stuck with insurance that will be far more expensive than they thought. Unless Congress and the White House agree on a fix that would allow the subsidies to continue — and the chances of that happening are somewhere between zero and non-existent — there’s no question the result will be chaos, and many will be hurt by the development. The prospect of such a mess has caused some to speculate that the court will — as it did with its original and utterly illogical verdict in the case that approved a blatantly unconstitutional law — uphold the legality of the subsidies for political rather than legal reasons.

But the staggering price hikes announced on Monday remind us that the law the administration desperately wants to preserve hasn’t lived up to its billing. ObamaCare forced millions to lose their existing coverage or the doctors they liked despite the president’s oft-repeated promises. It has imposed controversial mandates on businesses and institutions that have raised serious questions about religious freedom as the government invented some rights while trashing others. Moreover we have yet to see the full impact of the employer and individual mandates as the administration sought to postpone the painful aspects of the bill as opposed to the more popular ones in a vain effort to save the Democrats in the 2014 midterm elections. Contrary to the expectations of both supporters and its opponents, ObamaCare hasn’t turned out to be another version of Social Security or Medicare. Unlike those pieces of legislation, ObamaCare created a vast population of net losers, something that has ensured that it continues to be deeply unpopular.

But the failure of the new system to control costs in such a way as to prevent these kind of massive price increases for consumers, gives the lie to the belief that there was anything affordable about this act.

As I wrote last week, Congress needs to prepare for the possibility that King v. Burwell will overturn the ObamaCare applecart. But even as we worry about the impact of such a decision, let’s dismiss the idea that what it might destroy was not already a terrible, unpopular mess that has disrupted the health care system and hasn’t controlled costs. Though it ought to be replaced by something that takes the government out of health care while helping those who will be hurt by its demise and enact reforms that will lower rather than increase prices, ObamaCare is a disaster that still deserves to be repealed if the court lets it survive and limp into an uncertain and pricey future.