Friday, February 21, 2014

Vicious Leftists Attack Julia Boonstra as 'Not Really Harmed by #ObamaCare'

Well, that didn't take long at all, less than twenty-four hours, to be precise.

Indeed, right on cue: "How Long Until Democrats Demonize Leukemia Patient Julie Boonstra for Excoriating #ObamaCare?"

It turns out WaPo's Glenn Kessler ran a fact-check on the Americans for Prosperity ad featuring Boonstra, who lost her health insurance under ObamaCare, was terrorized and traumatized by the initial problems with HealthCare.gov, and is now stressed out by the dangerous variability of her out-of-pocket expenses. As noted at the Detroit Free Press a couple of weeks ago:

Julia Boonstra photo julieboonstrajpg-78a41e8e31c4273f_zpsced705b4.jpg
Boonstra was diagnosed with leukemia five years ago and relies on daily oral chemotherapy. In October, Boonstra was among an estimated 225,000 Michigan residents who received notices the health insurance they purchased on the individual market would be discontinued for not meeting new standards under the law. She said she was covered under a Blue Care Network private plan with a $1,100-a-month premium but low out-of-pocket costs.

Boonstra was dogged by technical difficulties on the federal health care exchange website and panicked she would be unable to keep her University of Michigan doctors and lifesaving treatment. Ultimately, she enrolled in a new Blue Cross Blue Shield plan through an agent where her premiums were cut in half at $571, but she pays higher out of pocket costs. She’s still seeing her U-M oncologist.

“I just want my plan back, I really do,” said Boonstra, 49, a mother of two. “It was extremely expensive and there are things as far as oral chemotherapies that need to be done to reduce the cost. ... But I was covered and I made having a great health plan a priority for me and that was taken away from me.”
Ms. Boonstra liked her existing coverage. She believed the president, who (falsely and repeatedly) said she'd be able to keep her plan. She was lied to. And she was terrorized by the bureaucratic nightmare of the ObamaCare website rollout.

But none of this matters to the despicable Democrat-collectivist healthcare trolls, most prominently the brainless Mother Jones derp Kevin Drum, who uses Kessler's sleazy attack on Boonsta's nightmare experience to blanket-slur Republicans for their opposition to the president's ObamaCare clusterf-k: "Has Anyone in America Actually Been Harmed by Obamacare?" (via Memeorandum):
Boonstra herself is naturally unavailable for comment, and the best an unctuous AFP spokesperson could do to defend this ad is to point out that Boonstra's costs are a little more variable than in the past. Instead of paying a flat $1,100 per month plus low out-of-pocket costs, she sometimes pays more in a single month until she hits her annual out-of-pocket max. That's it.

This ad implies that Boonstra flatly can't afford coverage anymore. It implies that she could no longer see her old doctor. It implies that Obamacare is killing her. None of this is true. Boonstra's care is better and cheaper than it was before. The only downside is that her payments are slightly more erratic than in the past.

So here's my question: if this is the best AFP can do, does that mean that no one is truly being harmed by Obamacare? Hell, I'm a diehard defender of Obamacare, and even I concede that there ought to be at least hundreds of thousands of people who are truly worse off than they were with their old plans. But if that's the case, why is it that every single hard luck story like this falls apart under the barest scrutiny? Why can't AFP find someone whose premiums really have doubled and who really did lose her doctor and who really is having a hard time getting the care she used to get?

If this is happening to a lot of people, finding a dozen or so of them shouldn't be hard. But apparently it is. So maybe it's not actually happening to very many people at all?
This is wrong --- and vicious --- on so many levels. It's not just ridiculous. It's reprehensible.

Forget Kessler's idiotic fact-check. The reality is that Boonstra may well pay so much more in a single month as to make her medications unaffordable, just as the ad indicates; and yet the ghoulish Drum pounces on this woman with the incredulous, "That's it!??" "How dare you Boonstra refuse to sacrifice for the collective?!!"

You see, leftists simply won't tolerate citizens who resist being violently coerced into government programs they don't need, programs that impose hardships and inconvenience, and that take away individual choice and self-sufficiency. We can't have that under the Obama regime. These Democrat collectivists will say, "You will have ObamaCare and you will like it, or else!"

I mean, seriously. The RealClearPolitics polling average for the last month has public support of ObamaCare at 38.4. (Just over half --- a simple majority --- oppose this statist healthcare monstrosity.)

But for radical leftists, you must sacrifice for the social good!

See the idiot tool Ron Chusid's lame defense of this Obamanation, "If Obamacare Is So Bad, Why Can’t The Right Wingers Find Real Losers Under Obamacare?":
While a small minority of us are paying more, a tremendous number of people are now able to obtain coverage who could not obtain it in the past because it was too expensive or insurance companies would not cover them due to per-existing medical conditions. I have patients in this situation who could not obtain coverage in the past but have been covered since January. With all the bogus complaints about people losing their coverage, the significant number is that zero people can now be dropped by their insurance because they become sick, and zero people have to fear losing their insurance should they stop working.

On top of all these benefits, the Affordable Care Act will help the economy. The recent Congressional Budget Office Report, frequently distorted by Republicans, shows that the Affordable Care Act will reduce unemployment, help decrease the deficit, and allow more people to leave large corporations to start small businesses. The effects of this freedom from the “insurance trap” cannot be scored in a CBO report, but should provide a tremendous boost to the economy.
Right.

"Bogus complaints" of millions of Americans ("a small minority") whose existing coverage was ripped out from under them by this disastrous legislation. And look at the pile of lies Chusid heaps on in that second paragraph quoted above: No, the CBO report wasn't "distorted by Republicans"; no, ObamaCare will not "reduce unemployment"; no, more people will not "leave large corporations to start small businesses"; and no, there is no such thing as an "insurance trap." God, this Chusid clown's a shameless liar.

But then again, I predicted that leftists would demonize Ms. Boonstra, especially so since the "evil" Koch brothers are the financial backbone behind AFP's political advertising, and here it comes:
This lady is a liar. The numbers don't add up and her medication is covered. This is a scam This is a disgusting attempt at getting her "10 minutes" of fame all based on a GOP lie. Rep. Walberg, the Koch Brothers, and Ms. Boonstra should be ashamed for this charade. There is enough in the ACA to ridicule without making up lies and stories for sympathy. A liar is a liar. How do you look in the mirror each morning ??
I rest my case.

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