Last
month Americans For Prosperity, funded who knows to what extent by the billionaire conservative
Koch brothers, released an
ad calling on voters to speak out to Senator Mary Landrieu about how much
Obamacare is hurting Louisiana families.
The ad starts with a middle class Mom
on the porch and two gorgeous middle class kids running out to the post box,
laughing. A very sad, kind voice over says “Dear Mrs. Kelly; your family plan
is no longer available under the Affordable Care Act.” as the kids pull the
letter out the box. Cut
to a young middle class African American woman coming into her apartment,
opening up her letter box. The same voice says “Dear Ms. Davis, we can no
longer offer you the same policy; your doctor is no long in the network due the
Affordable Care Act.” She looks devastated.
Cut
to a father and his daughter on a farm standing at the letter box. She’s
adorable. He’s the poster boy for responsible, down to earth Dad. The same
voice says “Your monthly premium has increased…” at which point Dad looks at
adorable daughter with great distress, “…no longer covered due to the
Affordable Care Act”. One more shot of a woman opening her letter box and the
final message is “send Senator Landrieu a message. Obamacare is hurting
Louisiana families.”
When
Americans for Prosperity was pinned down on the veracity of the ad a
spokesperson admitted the characters were all actors. There wasn’t any
truth in even a second of that footage.
In
February the AFP made another
ad and they used a real person for this one: a Julie Boonstra who was
diagnosed with leukemia 5 years ago. Ms. Boonstra speaks directly to the
camera, looks sincere and her words are
heart stopping.
“I
was diagnosed with leukemia. I found out I only have a 20 percent chance of
surviving. I found this wonderful doctor and a great health care plan. I was
doing fairly well fighting the cancer, fighting the leukemia, and then I
received a letter. My insurance was canceled because of Obamacare. Now, the
out-of-pocket costs are so high, it’s unaffordable. If I do not receive my
medication, I will die... This is serious. It’s not a game…”
The
Washington Post runs a fact checker blog written by journalist Glen Kessler which grants a Pinocchio rating from one to four. One is a few errors, four is a
whopping lie. When Kessler
first reviewed this ad he had been told by the AFP that Ms. Boonstra had a
Silver individual plan through Blue Cross Blue Shield but they didn’t give
details of the actual plan. Still, Kessler was able to expose ‘contradictions’
so he gave Ms. Boonstra two Pinocchios.
Why?
Because Ms. Boonstra not only has a plan that saves her $571 a month, but she
keeps that wonderful doctor she found. Kessler discovered also that the Silver
plan doesn’t cover out of pocket (OOP) expenses, as her previous plan did, but
it puts a cap on them of $6,350. The money she saves comes to $6,852. Until they reach the cap those OOP expenses
are unpredictable; they may be more than $571 a month, they may be less. When
the lie that she’s lost her lovely doctor and that she’s going to die was
exposed, Ms. Boonstra was forced to resort to saying, in another ad, that the unpredictability is the real problem and
it’s making her life a nightmare. It didn’t have as much punch.
But
that isn’t the end of the story. The
Detroit News subsequently discovered that Ms. Boonstra has a Premier Gold
Plan which has an OOP cap of $5,100. So in fact Ms. Boonstra saves $1,200
because of Obamacare. The lovely Ms. Boonstra’s reaction was to say “I don’t
believe it”. Blue Cross Shield’s reaction was to say that they are available to
help their clients understand policies; clients just have to pick up the
phone.
Kessler
reviewed his first rating of the ad and now gives three Pinocchios. The end
to this sad tale is that in fact Ms. Boonstra isn’t going to die or to lose her
doctor, or lose anything at all because
of Obamacare. In fact she’s going to gain. Is she grateful? Nope. And millions
of previously uninsured people are going to gain healthcare, perhaps for the
first time in their lives. Many who are as sick or worse than Ms. Boonstra now
have a chance at treatment and survival. Many who have previously been
bankrupted or whose children have never been able to see a doctor now have
medical care.
Not
if Ms. Boonstra has anything to say about it, though. The AFP spent $30 million
on ads attacking Democrats and Obamacare for the Senate races. The first ad has had over
400 000 views on YouTube and the second has had over 98,000 views.
The
constant Republican warcry that the ACA is unpopular and destroying people’s
lives is believed by many because of ads like these. The frightening part of it
all is that these believers don’t ask themselves why, if so many people’s lives
have been destroyed, doesn’t the AFP show footage of them, and instead chooses
to resort to actors and people whose stories can so easily be exposed as lies.
The truth is clearly that nobody cares about the truth.
Republican
politicians and their backers and supporters know by now that as soon as they
put out anything masquerading as information about Obamacare/ACA it’s going to
be rigorously checked. They don't care. They know that they're exploiting an
unreasoning, atavistic fear of an African American president. This kind of propaganda works on Republican voters. Last year a Public
Policy Polling found that 29% of [polled] Republican primary voters in Louisiana
blamed President Obama for the disaster in relief efforts after Hurricane Katrina
struck and levees broke.
Katrina happened in August 2005. Barack Obama took
office in 2009.
