PrintSeptember 17, 2009
Gee - only a week later we learn Obama was wrong about insurance sob story
He stood in the well of the House a week ago, looked right into the camera at the American people and lied.
No, not that lie. Not the laughable notion that illegals will be unable to buy into Obamacare. This is a lie where he indicted the entire US healthcare system by claiming someone died because private insurance companies are too greedy.
Jonathan Weisman of the Wall Street Journal has uncovered the real story of what happened to the man Obama claimed was dropped by his insurance company during chemo treatment because of an unreported gallstone:
President Barack Obama, seeking to make a case for health-insurance regulation, told a poignant story to a joint session of Congress last week. An Illinois man getting chemotherapy was dropped from his insurance plan when his insurer discovered an unreported gallstone the patient hadn't known about. "They delayed his treatment, and he died because of it," the president said in the nationally televised address.
In fact, the man, Otto S. Raddatz, didn't die because the insurance company rescinded his coverage once he became ill, an act known as recission. The efforts of his sister and the office of Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan got Mr. Raddatz's policy reinstated within three weeks of his April 2005 rescission and secured a life-extending stem-cell transplant for him. Mr. Raddatz died this year, nearly four years after the insurance showdown.
Obama aides say the president got the essence of the story correct. Mr. Raddatz was dropped from his insurance plan weeks before a scheduled stem-cell transplant.
No, the president did most assuredly NOT get the "essence" of the story correct. In fact, he got the essence wrong - completely.
The "essence" of the story is that the patient died because his treatment was delayed by greedy, heartless, insurance companies. Any boob knows that the point Obama was trying to make was that the patient's death was directly the result of insurance company actions.
But the patient's sister testified before Congress:
The patient's sister, Peggy M. Raddatz, testified before the House Energy and Commerce oversight subcommittee June 16 that her brother ultimately received treatment that "extended his life approximately three years." Nowhere in the hearing did she say her brother died because of the delay. Ms. Raddatz didn't return calls seeking comment.
Weisman points out that Obama's speechwriters may have been misled by an article in Slate that didn't present an accurate picture of Raddatz's situation. And evidently, another story the president told about a woman needing a double mastectomy, having her insurance cut off, and then dying as a result of the delay was true.
Why did it take a week for someone in the media to ferret out this information? Fact checking sure has gone out of style now that we have a liberal Democrat in the White House.
