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Category: News and Politics
I cannot for the life of me believe that a President would get up and use the pulpit to LIE ON BEHALF of a Cancer Patient to try and SELL his SOCIALIST Health Care Program to Americans.
This has gone beyond being a circus that this Admin is making out of these Great United States of America!
Very sad, indeed!
~ DocManJayObama's
Real-Person Health Care Story Not That Real
09/18/09
President Obama -- like presidents before him -- loves a good vignette. White
House speechwriters are all about a narrative and the Obama crew, especially, is
all about the story. If a tale doesn't pass muster, well, who'll be the
wiser? And yet, facts do matter. Presidents attempt to persuade their
countrymen to support policies based on heart-wrenching stories of human
suffering. But when that anecdotal evidence is shown to be bogus, or
exaggerated, it can undermine the chief executive's point -- and, perhaps, his
policies.
After I raised questions about its accuracy, President Obama has
dropped from his last two health care speeches an inaccurate reference he made
about the health care travails of an Illinois man, whom Obama claimed had died
after his insurance company declined to pay for his cancer treatments.
When Obama spoke to Congress about health care reform on Sept. 9, he
attempted to put a human face on his push for a provision barring insurance
companies from dropping patients with pre-existing medical conditions.
While not citing the person's name, the president said: "One man from
Illinois lost his coverage in the middle of chemotherapy because his insurer
found that he hadn't reported gallstones that he didn't even know about. They
delayed his treatment, and he died because of it."
It's just not true, which I pointed out in my
Chicago Sun-Times column. I confirmed with the White House that the
man Obama was referring to was Otto Raddatz, from a Chicago suburb. His
insurance company did indeed yank his coverage in April 2005. But after a fight
led by his sister, Peggy, an attorney and the Illinois attorney general, Raddatz
got his coverage reinstated in a few weeks and never missed any needed
treatments. And he did not die until Jan. 6, 2009.
I raised questions about the Obama claim with the White House on Sept
10. The White House told me that Obama's speechwriters picked up the story from
Slate and never vetted the facts independently. If they had, they would have
realized that the Slate report was erroneous.
3:00 AM
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