Hope and Fail

Lying about man who died after losing insurance

During his speech before a joint session of Congress pitching health care reform, the president told a couple of stories about Americans who have lost their private insurance — and one was a tall tale.

Here’s what he 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.  Another woman from Texas was about to get a double mastectomy when her insurance company canceled her policy because she forgot to declare a case of acne.  By the time she had her insurance reinstated, her breast cancer had more than doubled in size.  That is heart-breaking, it is wrong, and no one should be treated that way in the United States of America.

Those stories back up the president’s argument, but his facts are wrong.

While the man to which Obama referred, Otto Raddatz, was treated poorly by his insurance company, he didn’t die because of delayed treatment.

From Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times:

the decision of the company was reversed and the insurer was forced to pay benefits because of the persistent efforts of his sister Peggy Raddatz, a LaGrange attorney. She found her way to Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s Health Care Bureau and kept up the pressure. Otto Raddatz fought his insurance company in April 2005 and won. Raddatz did not, as Obama said, die because of delayed treatment in 2005. He died in January.

… Obama went too far, though, when he claimed in his speech that Raddatz died because the coverage was withdrawn.

What’s more, the president downplayed the plight of the Texas woman’s story. Her cancer had more than tripled in size, according to the Wall Street Journal.