Even “the smartest woman in the world” doesn’t understand the (Un-)Affordable Care Act.

During Sunday’s Democrat town hall, CNN somehow allowed an audience member to bring up her skyrocketing health insurance costs under Obamacare.  Hillary Clinton urged the woman to “keep shopping” on the exchange.

But that’s impossible under Obamacare.

The window for buying health insurance is closed.  Along with the individual mandate, it’s one of the building blocks of the (U)ACA, and Clinton, who’s running on her “experience” and Washington résumé, should have known that.  If she cared about how the (U)ACA affected people, that is.

Teresa O’Donnell, an office coordinator from Powell, Ohio, told Clinton that, like many Americans, her premiums have skyrocketed under Obamacare:

“I have voted for Obama, and then my health insurance skyrocketed from $409 a month to $1,090 a month for a family of four. I know Obama told us that we would be paying a little more, but doubling -- over doubling my health insurance cost has not been a little more. It has been difficult to come up with that kind of payment every month. I would like to vote Democratic, but it's cost me a lot of money, and I'm just wondering if Democrats really realize how difficult it's been on working class Americans to finance Obama care.”

In this correspondent’s experience, $1,090 for a family of four is actually low by ObamaCare’s jacked-up rates, and not representative of what many families are facing.  Obama actually promised lower premiums under his scheme.

Clinton responded by urging O’Donnell to shop the federal marketplace, even though O’Donnell explained that she had tried there but that her premiums would have actually been even higher there than through a private policy.

Nevertheless, Clinton continued to insist that O’Donnell should continue to shop the federal exchange:

And one thing that I would like you to do, and I'm not saying it's going to make a difference, but I would like you to just go shopping on that exchange. As I understand it, Ohio has the federal exchange… Because they did not set up a state exchange. 

So you have the federal exchange. And to go on and keep looking to see what the prices are.

Yes, it probably would be advantageous for O’Donnell to be able to continue shopping for health insurance year-round.  But that is specifically outlawed in the system that Clinton and the Democrats imposed on us.

You cannot buy health insurance outside the open enrollment window unless you have a life-changing event (loss of job, divorce, etc.) and are specifically approved to do so by the Obamacare Gestapo at the IRS (except for short-term policies, designed to bridge the gap between jobs, etc.)  And as one broker told me about applications for those, “I have yet to see one approved.”

So all people like O’Donnell, who feel trapped by their outrageously expensive policies, can do is wait until next year.  When their premiums will shoot up again.

Clinton’s ignorance on the matter is just another example of how little she specifically, and the Washington elites in general, knows – or cares – about how their actions affect the people they are supposed to represent.