This might qualify as a bit of old news. However, if you get most of your news from the main stream media, you might not have heard about it. While Barack Obama was campaigning for president, he often told a story about how his mother had to fight with insurance companies while being treated for cancer.
Turns out President Obama might have been stretching the truth for dramatic effect. It is true that his mother had cancer, and it is true that she had to deal with insurance companies. There were forms to file, and justifications that had to be delivered on the insurance claims. But Obama made it seem like she was without insurance and was a close to destitute as one can get.
Not quite. Obama’s mother did have employer-provided insurance and it covered most of what you would expect insurance to cover. Like the rest of us, she had to cover deductibles and other the usual “stuff”. But to claim that she was without insurance due to the big, bad, heartless insurance companies was nothing more than a story told to get folks believing a universal health care plan was needed. What she was not covered was disability, which her insurance company deemed as preexisting and not coverable under the policy she was given through her employer.
Her situation did stink as she had to cover her living expenses while essential dying from cancer. But for a presidential candidate to make it seem her health coverage was lacking was a fabrication of the first order. And it wasn’t the last time Obama would use this tactic to scare people. He has done it before.
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