WSJ Exposes More Obama Fear-Mongering in Primetime Speech

I've been hitting the President for a week now about the lies in that speech, but was anything that man said true?

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In fact, the man, Otto S. Raddatz, didn't die because the insurance company rescinded his coverage once he became ill, an act known as recission.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.

Ah, the "fake, but accurate" excuse. Hey, it sounded good, right? The story is so much better, so much more likely to scare the bejebus out of Grandma if the guy dies from lack of care.

The "essence" of the story is that a man's insurance was rescinded after he got sick. There's no word from the President or the insurer on why his care was rescinded and we are left to assume it was unjust and not because the fellow failed to make payments or to disclose prior conditions. We don't know that side of the story.

What we do know is that the man lived and the insurer paid -- eventually. Obama would rather obscure both of those facts. He would rather be able to say the man died so that people will be afraid. Then he would like to be able to say the insurer didn't pay so that he can point to a villain.

posted by Gabriel Malor at 11:09 AM

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