Story highlights Mitch McConnell: Obamacare has been characterized by rising health care costs and broken promises

He says any honest agenda for improving health care must begin with removing Obamacare and replacing it with patient-centered reforms

Mitch McConnell, a Republican who represents Kentucky, is the Senate majority leader. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his.

(CNN) Rising health care costs have become the hallmark of a partisan Obamacare law that was sold with promises to lower them. The Obama White House just announced that health care premiums will rise again this year for millions of Americans by an almost unbelievable 25% under Obamacare. And that's just a national average. Many Pennsylvanians face hikes in their health premiums as high as 55%; Oklahomans up to 69%, and Arizonans as much as 116%.

Sen. Mitch McConnell

Behind these numbers are the stories of families and individuals struggling just to make ends meet already. Take one Kentucky mom who recently wrote my office about rising premiums that she says more than doubled for her family since they were forced into Obamacare.

These ever-increasing premiums, she said, are "not the American Dream for me and many Americans." Many Kentuckians like this mom have felt the brunt of Obamacare's increasing costs.

In fact, people in my home state recently learned that Obamacare premiums could increase for some by up to 47% next year. These Kentuckians, like so many others across our country, are experiencing firsthand the broken promises of Obamacare.

Now, Obamacare's champions will argue that "subsidies" offset some of these premium increases for some people, but what they won't tell you is where those "subsidies" come from: your pockets. "Subsidies" is just a nicer way to say "middle-class taxpayers will pay for it."