Tag: Obamacare

Bogus Obamascare story reveals the impact of staff cuts

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No editor's note. No comment. No clarification.

By Alan Bean

Maggie Mahar knew something was wrong when she read in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that a local woman’s health insurance policy had been cancelled and that the premium if she signed up for Obamacare would be $1,000 a month.  Mahar did some quick checking and learned that the woman qualified for insurance at one-third the price.  When she informed the Star-Telegram of this fact, she learned that the newspaper had been notified, shortly after the article went to print, that the woman had signed up for a new policy under the Affordable Care Act at a cost of only $350 per month.

That was a month ago, and the paper still hasn’t published a correction.

It doesn’t end there.  According to Mahar, most of the dissatisfied health insurance customers quoted in the expose were Tea Party activists who were eager to believe the worst about the ACA.  It isn’t clear if these people contacted the reporter who wrote the story or if she initially reached out to them.

This isn’t a story about conservative media bias in North Texas.  The Star-Telegram is about as moderate a newspaper as you can reasonably expect hope to find in deep red Tarrant County.  This kind of colossal screw-up is happening across the country on stories large and small because newspapers don’t have enough reporters to cover important stories well, nor, in many instances, do they have the luxury of fact-checking.  When reporters are doing the work of three people the temptation to cut corners becomes overwhelming and mistakes are inevitable.

There is no sense pointing fingers at individuals.  Staffing cutbacks are a function of declining readership and a corresponding drop in advertising revenue.  Even the New York Times would be out of business by now had it not been purchased by a wealthy benefactor.

Still, it is unforgivable for the Star-Telegram to maintain a stony silence when the editorial staff knows they dropped the ball.  When it comes to health care reporting, be very skeptical about what you read, especially when only folks on one side of the issue have been asked for their opinion.

Note: Since this story aired, Jim Witt, the executive editor of the Star-Telegram, has printed an editorial apologizing for the newspapers’ failure to publish a correction to the story Maggie Mahar cites below.  Witt points out, correctly, that the Star-Telegram has maintained a neutral and unbiased stance toward the Affordable Care Act.  He also denies that one of the women quoted in the story belongs to the Tea Party (although her mother leads the Parker County chapter) and the woman has published a letter in a Tea Party friendly paper repeating her inaccurate claim that her premium would be almost $1,000/month.  Will mentions that the S-T published a story by a reporter who says he had no trouble signing up for insurance on the government site.  Witt has made a good initial attempt to set the record straight, but he needs to correct the grossly inaccurate claims about the high cost of premiums that constitute the heart of the original S-T story and Mahar’s critique.  Witt is right to claim that Tea Party members need good health care just like everybody else, but that’s not the point.  As Mahar makes clear, reasonably priced policies (by inflated American standards) are available, so the point is moot.

Anatomy of an Obamacare ‘horror story’

Texas daily went digging for victims of the ACA and Surprise! Reporter unearthed three Tea Partiers who hate the new law.

By 
January 3, 2014

For months, health reform’s opponents have been feasting on tales of Obamacare’s innocent victims – Americans who lost their insurance because it doesn’t comply with the ACA’s regulations, and now have to shell out more than they can afford – or go without coverage.

Trouble is, many of those stories just aren’t true.

Yesterday I posted about a Fort Worth Star Telegram article that leads with the tale of Whitney Johnson, a 26-year-old new mother who suffers from multiple sclerosis (MS). Her insurer just cancelled her policy, and according to Johnson, new insurance would cost her over $1,000 a month. (more…)

What critics of Obamacare don’t get

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Drug

There is an obvious answer to this piece by Chris Arnade: Don’t abuse drugs and the problem goes away.  If that makes sense to you, read no further.  If you care about the woman in the picture because she is a human being, read on . . .

Ted Cruz and Obamacare critics clearly don’t get it

Opponents of reform don’t see how lucky they are to have easy access to healthcare. For homeless addicts, it’s a different reality 

Chris Arnade

The Guardian

Homeless drug addicts fall through the cracks in America’s healthcare system. Photograph: Chris Arnade

I arrived at 9am as planned, with $10 in my pocket and a sheet of phone numbers. Sonya was missing, her corner space now just a bed of cardboard, a bundle of dirty blankets, broken needles, and a Bible. Her kitten was gone, presumably given to a friend to watch, or maybe it fled, scared by the roar of semi-trucks only 10 meters away.

I walked the stretch of the Bruckner Expressway in the Bronx, New York, where she begs for money.

At 10am I found her leaning against a pole. She smiled, “I just need to get straight before I go”. I have learned the language of addicts. She was talking about one last hit of heroin before entering detox. The thought of being dope sick in a waiting room is just too much.

Nobody had drugs available this early; she had to call for a delivery that came an hour later.

Most of her veins are dry, shriveled from overuse. Except in her foot. She took off her shoes and asked for privacy:

My feet really stink, sorry, get all soggy in these shoes. Out here you can’t really wear heels.

I grabbed her small purse, once red but now black. Inside was her paperwork: an expired driver’s license from a happier time, a Medicaid letter crumpled and torn. I struggled to make out her information; maybe it was a letter E or an F on her Medicaid ID, maybe a three or an eight. I wrote down the different possibilities.

I waited in the car, calling different hospitals and inpatient programs that accept those who only have Medicaid. Most calls went to voicemail, doomed to become messages unreturned. Forty minutes of calling netted me three rejections, all the places were filled or needed proof of residence. I explained she slept under an overpass. They shrugged. Rules are rules.

Desperate, I called a place nearby, a place most addicts hate, a place with “nasty doctors and nurses who treat you like shit”.

“What is her Medicaid ID?” I repeated the numbers and letters. “What is her drug of choice and when was the last time she used?” I looked over at Sonya, still hidden in her corner, working on her foot. “Her drug is heroin and the last time is five minutes from now.”

They had a bed. She slept in the van as I drove, overpowered by a bar of Xanax she neglected to tell me about. She slept again in the drab detox intake room, filled with others desperate to be clean. The smell of urine and bleach was overpowering.

Ted CruzUS Senator Ted CruzTwo college kids were giving a lecture on healthy eating, passing out flyers. They left one on Sonya’s lap.

After an hour of confusion, she was turned down. Her Medicaid coverage had expired. Renewal letters never reached her patch of dirt she calls home. Sonya returned to her spot, coiled on the cardboard and collapsed into the blankets, the Bible under her head.

I have tried about 15 times to take homeless addicts to detox. Only twice has it worked, and only after days of navigating misinformation and filling out paperwork.

One addict was turned down after eight hours of driving from clinic to clinic, because they were not in withdrawal at the time. I asked what in the hell I have to do to help get an addict clean. A doctor, angry at his time being taken, responded:

Just drop them off sick at the emergency room. They have to take them.

I did that once, waiting amongst families with ill children, families who are forced to use the ER as their primary care physician. We waited five hours. It ended with the addict running into the street to vomit, sick from withdrawal, his pants soiled.

After dropping Sonya off, I drove home. The radio news was filled with reports on Senator Ted Cruz’s 20-hour marathon rant against healthcare reform, which includes an expansion of Medicaid to cover an additional 21.3 million people.

Ted Cruz has access to wonderful healthcare coverage, available either through his government job or his wife’s job at Goldman Sachs.

I also have secure access to quality healthcare, because of my prior job on Wall Street. Unlike Sonya, when I was battling a penchant for beer, I had many luxurious options: weeks away in a country estate or a private suite that offered family visits. I never went that route, but it was always available to me and others as fortunate.

I understand now, after so many frustrations and failures dealing with one of America’s most neglected and at-risk populations, how lucky I am to have those choices.

Ted Cruz does not.