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Wednesday, October 30, 2013

People Losing Their Crappy Health Insurance Will Get Far Better Value For Money


You know how all these people are losing their beloved low-priced insurance plans because Obamacare took them away even though the President said "if you like your insurance plan you can keep it"? Sure you do, if you've listened to any media in the last week, and seen the CBS News segment that profiled Diane Barrette whose insurance premium is going from $54 a month to over $500.
A visibly distraught woman who recently lost her health insurance plan because of the new requirements within the Affordable Care Act recently expressed her frustrations to CBS News. In a report about the number of people losing their health plans, in spite of assurances by the president, one Florida woman choked up slightly while revealing that she will have to pay more than $500 monthly for the coverage she previously paid just $50 for.
She also noted that the fact that so many are losing their health care plans is “directly at odds with repeated assurances by the president.”
Many, including Dianne Barrette, a 56-year-old Florida resident, were recently informed that their current health care plans were not comprehensive enough to meet coverage requirements set by the ACA. Barrette was recently informed that her new plan will cost 10 times what she presently pays per month.
CBS' Jan Crawford took that information from Ms. Barrette and repeated it at face value with no investigation or followup. Poor, poor Ms, Barrette her insurance costs are skyrocketing by 10 times their original cost.

Well you will never believe who poked giant holes through this 'report': Fox News' Greta Van Sustern.
Greta teed up the interview using the same setup as Crawford’s piece, that Barrette is “finding out she will have to pay 10 times as much for health insurance” because “she is losing her current plan to Obamacare.”
“I have a copy of your Florida Blue insurance and it’s about $54 a month,” Greta continued, “and now I understand that under Obamacare, it’s going to go up, at least they said that the policy they would offer you under Florida Blue, would be $591; is that correct?”
Actually, the plan BCBSFL was only one of many plans Dianne has to choose from, 10 of which are cheaper than that $591, and based on her income, she’d only pay around $209 a month, but Greta did cut right to the chase about the quality of her old plan.
“Your $54 a month policy is a pretty, you know, bare bones policy, “Greta said. “Why do you want to keep that one, except for the price? Maybe you can get something better with a subsidy?”
Ms. Barrette goes on to say that this 'insurance' is perfect for what she needs: a doctor visit copay and prescription copay, and maybe some outpatient services. It turns out that she actually had that reversed and the insurance company paid a $50 'copay' towards a doctor visit, and $15 for prescriptions, and she herself was responsible for all the rest of the costs. The interviewee acknowledged no hospital stays were covered in response to Greta's question.
Now this is exactly the type of junk insurance Obamacare is meant to do away with, and it is not surprising that people don't know what their insurance covers. But a reporter with a major news outlet should have done some reporting and learned that.  So it should be of great embarassment to CBS to be shown up that way by Fox filling in missing facts in their story.
What is funny though is that a subsequent interview that was to take place on Fox News with Ms. Barrette, was cancelled, after Greta poked holes in the story.
Following her chat with Van Susteren, Barrette got word from a network producer that her appointment to appear this morning on Fox News was cancelled, she tells the Erik Wemple Blog.

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