As fact checkers investigated and debunked claims made in an ad attacking the Affordable Care Act, Fox News and other conservative media used a cancer patient's illness to defend the spot's dishonesty.The episode is part of an ongoing pattern in the conservative media of promoting anecdotal Obamacare horror stories that have fallen apart under scrutiny.Michigan resident Julie Boonstra, who is suffering from leukemia, had her existing insurance plan canceled after it failed to meet the law's new guidelines, which forces insurers to provide more comprehensive coverage than in the past.She later signed up for a new plan, which she has said is too expensive, and came to national attention earlier this year after she repeatedly appeared with Republicans attacking the health care law.Boonstra was featured in an ad released last week by conservative group Americans for Prosperity saying that her new "out-of-pocket costs are so high,it's unaffordable." AFP is largely funded by conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch; their ad targets Rep. Gary Peters (D-MI), who is running for Michigan's soon-to-be open Senate seat, their second such ad in the state.
as the desperation mounts the misinformation gets more hurried to where they are just putting out anybody their camera's will film. but don't feel insulted because if you are than they are not aiming at you.
remember they said they were not going to let fact checkers dictate to them, which is right wing speak for "we don't care whether it's true or not".
But the ad's claim hasn't held up. Washington Post fact checker Glenn Kessler investigated the ad and noted that while Boonstra says that her out of pocket health care costs are now "unaffordable," her monthly premiums were "cut in half" and that those savings are just two dollars shy of the maximum she would have to pay thanks to the new caps enacted in the law.Kessler noted, "the premium savings appear to match whatever out-of-pocket costs she now faces."He concluded:It is one thing to say there are higher out-of-pocket costs, as she did at the RNC news conference, but another to assume that those higher costs are not offset in some way by the significantly lower premium. (The $350,000 bone marrow transplant, for instance, would be capped at the out of pocket minimum.) The reality is that eventually Boonstra will hit the maximum and no longer pay anything. So over the course of the year, the difference in the costs could well even out.
from day one of the announcement of ACA they have poured more lies and misinfo on it then the did Pres. during the last 5 years, i think they see it as their last hurrah and it's all in given every nefarious plan they tried failed miserably and exposed them for the frauds they are. but the real Americans they are hurting are "we the people" not Pres. or his admin., we have a chance to right the wrong we have been subjected to since 2010, we failed to show up for the primary and it's biting us.
