In large measure, President Barack Obama’s health care law was sold to Americans based on his contention government can handle certain tasks more economically than the private sector.

Last week a government inspector general reported at least one-third of the government contracts used to administer Obamacare are vastly over budget.

The HealthCare.gov website – a record-setting fiasco of inefficiency and complete breakdowns – has become a massive sponge soaking up taxpayers’ money. Inspector general’s investigators looked into 60 contracts linked to construction and operation of the website.

Twenty of those contracts were projected to cost a total of about $345 million. With the contracts still not completed, overruns total about $283 million.

Of course, Americans by the millions already are learning claims of savings through Obamacare were gigantic falsehoods. Led to believe their out-of-pocket spending would be limited, many are finding health care through the system can cost them enormous sums.

Virtually nothing about Obamacare is as the president and his cronies in Congress promised. Vast cost overruns in contracts to handle the system should come as no surprise, then.

If government initiatives in the past are any guide, sticker shock already being experienced is merely the tip of a very costly iceberg.