Harry Reid: Obamacare 'Costs Me About $4,500 More'

President Barack Obama may have famously promised his signature healthcare plan would cost consumers less money — but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is proof that it's often not true.

"Under Obamacare, my insurance costs me about $4,500 more than it did before," Reid told the Reno Gazette Journal. "Yes, because it is age-related and it wasn't like that before."

Reid, while noting that 150 million families get insurance through their employers, "so should all federal employees."

Reid's comments came while he denied a CNN story claiming he is the only top congressional leader to exempt some of his staff from having to buy coverage through the Obamacare exchanges.

"I followed the Affordable Care Act,” Reid said. “It is the law. The law says that if you have committee staff, leadership staff, they stay where they are. If you have other staff, which is most everyone, they go to the exchanges."

Reid is worth $2.8 to $6.2 million, according to an OpenSecrets.org  report, so he would not qualify for subsidies that would lower his Obamacare insurance costs.

But his rate hike is an eye-opener after promises made by people like House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who told Meet the Press last year that "everybody would have lower rates" under Obamacare.

She denied to The Weekly Standard in a later report that she'd made the statement, saying she doesn't "remember saying that everybody in the country would have a lower premium."

But a study earlier this year by two members of the American Academy of Actuaries found that tens of millions will see higher insurance costs, reports Forbes, with or without the subsidies — and just like Harry Reid.

Related stories:

• Obamacare Out-of-Pocket Costs Much Higher Than Expected
• Millions Facing Huge Costs, Lost Coverage Thanks to Obamacare Upheaval