They’ve learned nothing!: Media’s Obamacare coverage is humiliating

Betraying any knowledge of political science, media embarrasses itself with a phony frenzy. Here's how bad it was

Jonathan Bernstein

 

Charles Krauthammer, Mike Allen, Dana Milbank

 (Credit: Fox News/Reuters/Jonathan Ernst/PBS)

The political press has apparently learned nothing.
It all seemed so positive. Bloggers relying on actual political science (rather than just hunches and manufactured garbage) appeared to be making serious inroads. The Monkey Cage (and my own blogging) are at the Washington Post; political scientists have columns at lots of top sites. A book on the 2012 election by political scientists John Sides and Lynn Vavrick, which argued, in large part, that most of the gaffes and the day-to-day ups and downs of the campaign didn’t really amount to much, was getting terrific reviews.
It’s not just political scientists. Nate Silver and a whole bunch of analysts good with numbers have made reality-based political coverage, I thought, so much better. Ezra Klein’s Wonkblog is excellent. Plenty of top reporters and analysts (Salon’s Steve Kornacki and Brian Beutler very much included) are political science friendly.
And then? This week. In which we were treated to an all-out, no-holds-barred press frenzy. Kevin Drum surveyed what was going on:

Politico, by my count, has no fewer than 14 front page headlines today about the great Obamacare debacle. The Washington Post’s four top news articles and its four top op-eds are all about Obamacare, and the top op-eds are uniformly panicky…Ruth Marcus thinks Obama’s entire presidency at risk. Ditto for Milbank. And if that’s not bad enough for you, Krauthammer suggests that yesterday’s events spell doom for the entire liberal project.

Not just conservatives, either; Ronald Brownstein devoted a column to, well, how the entire liberal project was at risk.
It was a frenzy over … exactly what, anyway? The only shred of news about the Affordable Care Act this week to hang all of the hype on was the numbers on October signups, but given the thoroughly covered disaster with the initial rollout, the results were surely no surprise at all. As for the other strand of trouble, the pledge about keeping insurance, that’s been around for a few weeks now and nothing really happened this week to create a bigger flap.
All of which suggests that this is a press story, not a presidency or policy story.

The press is comparing this healthcare disaster (presumably the one that happened six weeks ago?) to Bush’s Katrina. A better comparison might be from the Bill Clinton era: Whitewater.
Now, granted, it’s not true that there’s no underlying story here. The healthcare.gov rollout was a fiasco, and while it’s getting quite a bit better, it’s not a done deal yet. The president’s rhetoric about keeping plans that people liked was worth knocking down, although it was as worth knocking down in 2009 or 2010 or 2011 as it was this week. The continuing horror stories about rate shock and canceled plans? Well, not all of them have been debunked, and some of them will no doubt turn out to be real, even after the exchanges are fully up and running. The press should absolutely be tracking all of this. It’s a big, important story.
The problem is that the big, important story is almost completely unrelated to the press frenzy. As far as I can tell, most of the media riot was set off by a single poll, a Quinnipiac poll, which wasn’t exactly an outlier, but did come in lower than other polls out there (a 39 percent approval rating for Barack Obama, compared with a bit over 42 percent in HuffPollster’s current estimate). That went along with a press narrative that had focused on (very real) Republican problems from the shutdown, without noticing that Obama’s approval also fell during the same time. It all produced a sudden, sharp, shift: “Obama survived the rollout fiasco thanks to the shutdown!” suddenly, overnight, became “Obama’s approval in free fall!” even though there really was no actual plunge.
So why like Whitewater? The last media frenzy about Obama’s collapse (not counting a smaller one over Syria) came in the spring, when Triple Scandals threatened to destroy him. But those scandals fizzled prematurely, leaving the scandal-loving press with a bad case of frustration. Indeed, as Brandon Nyhan was writing before those Triple Scandals, Obama was way overdue for something like that. When it didn’t pan out, the press was presumably still primed for a pile-on, and even though ACA implementation may not have been a promising topic, they worked with what they had.
In other words, it’s like Whitewater because it’s the result of the press primed and ready and waiting for something to blow up around. It’s different because there is a real story here, but that doesn’t seem to have anything to do with how the press is behaving.
Like Whitewater, or like the Triple Scandals from April, the phony frenzy part of this will blow over soon. But not before there’s plenty of damage – to the reputation of much of the working press, that is. There’s this week’s real fiasco.

Jonathan Bernstein writes at a Plain Blog About Politics. Follow him at @jbplainblog More Jonathan Bernstein.

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Inside the Fox News spin machine: I fact-checked Megyn Kelly on Obamacare

When a guest said Obamacare made him sell his business, I called him for his full story. It was more complicated

Eric Stern

Megyn Kelly (Credit: AP/Richard Drew)

Bill Lawrence of Texas recently posted on his Facebook page that he sold his business because of Obamacare.
Naturally, Mr. Lawrence was then invited on Fox News to be interviewed about his ordeal. He was on the Megyn Kelly show a week ago Friday.
Most of Kelly’s questions were fat softballs or in some cases just statements (“Employers like you might just have to say, ‘I’m gettin’ rid of my company!’”; “Your thoughts on having your livelihood directly affected based on what politicians in Washington felt was best for you?”).
I looked up Bill and decided to give him a buzz to learn more. He lives outside of Houston. We spoke for 45 minutes. He’s a guy who’s sort of hard not to like — funny, very sharp and obviously a very good businessman who built a large business from scratch.
Bill recently sold his company Bubbles Car Wash, with 13 locations and 290 employees, to a private equity fund for what he admitted was a tremendous price. “I’ve been very successful,” he acknowledged. (He boasted in a 2011 Houston Business Journal article that he owns two Mercedes and a Bentley convertible.)
With 290 employees, his business would be subject to the Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate that kicks in in 2015 (assuming it isn’t delayed, as it has been once already), which will force companies to offer insurance to workers or else pay a penalty. Bill says it would have run him in the neighborhood of $400,000 annually.
My first question to him was: Would he show me some of his business’s financial records? Maybe an annual report, preferably something audited, so I could analyze his claim about the catastrophic effect Obamacare would have had on his business? He would not.
Did Megyn Kelly request such verification? No, he said, she did not.
I then pressed Bill on whether there were any other reasons he was selling his business. He admitted to me that there were plenty of others (“myriad reasons,” in his words). What were some of them?  “You ever run a business?” he asked with a chuckle. And then he began ticking off a bunch of problems in his life that he said he’d now be glad to be rid of.  The headache of managing workers. Taxes, fees and permits of every shape and size and color (dumpster permits, gate permits, this permit, that permit). He complained to me that he has to pay $300 for an “auto dealer’s” permit just to sell air fresheners at the checkout counter of his car wash centers.
 From the sound of it, Gov. Rick Perry is more to blame for Bill’s choice to retire than Obama. Perhaps Texas is not the pro-business eden that Perry portrays it to be.

Nonetheless, Bill insisted that the Affordable Care Act was the “primary” reason he chose to sell out and retire after 22 years. He told me he spent a year attending seminars and seeking advice from lawyers and insurance experts on the employer mandate, and it was universally made clear to him that the new federal law would make it too costly to stay in business.
There’s no questions that Bubbles Car Wash will have to absorb a new cost under the employer mandate. The question is how great it will be, and whether it will impact the business enough to have required Bill to unload it. Although Bill wouldn’t show me any hard financial data, I asked him if he could give me a brief sketch of his company’s revenue. He thought for a while, and then said he’d estimate that the company had around $13 million a year in revenues and about $900,000 in earnings — earnings, meaning post-salary (he wouldn’t tell me what his annual salary had been as an owner of the business).
Bill also told me most of his wage earners do not want health insurance. He’s offered a mini-med program in the past, a very cheap and bare-bones plan that employees could purchase, and they usually decline it. If that’s the case, Bill’s burden will be much smaller than what he told Megyn Kelly. Under the Affordable Care Act, Bill must simply offer his employees a chance to share in the cost of an insurance plan. The worker’s share can legally be as high as 9.5 percent of the worker’s household income. Once Bill has made this offer to an employee, if the employee declines the coverage then Bill is off the hook and doesn’t have to pay a penalty.
And sadly, Bill might be correct that his wage earners (who earn $8.50 to $10 an hour) can’t afford to spend as high as 9.5 percent of their salaries sharing the cost of an insurance plan.
I sent Bill an article from a recent Forbes magazine that shows how businesses of his size, and specifically Texas businesses, will have ample opportunity to keep Obamacare costs very low by strategically offering insurance plans that they know their employees will reject, forcing them onto the individual exchange in some cases. He did not respond.
Incidentally, Bill also told me that the private equity company that bought him out had approached him as early as “three or four years ago,” so he was at least speaking to the buyers before Obamacare ever existed. A spokesperson for the new owner refused to talk to me for this article. Suffice it to say, however, that a private equity firm sees enormous potential in Bubbles Car Wash with or without Obamacare.
In the final analysis, Bill is a strong conservative who believes government has no business saddling him with new costs. He said it would be nice if every citizen could be insured, but “even if the cost were only 10 percent of what I’ve estimated,” he said to me, “why should the federal government make it my responsibility to pay for it?”  (We decided to agree that there is no right or wrong answer to that question, only opinions.)
And as for Megyn Kelly, she asked very few probative questions before or during the interview, preferring instead to just take Bill’s claim about Obamacare at face value. But clearly there was another side of the story.
Special thanks to Bill Bertovich, one of my readers, who tipped me off to the above segment.

Eric Stern lives in Helena, Montana. He was senior counsel to Brian Schweitzer, former Governor. Follow him on Twitter at @_ericstern.

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The Obamacare Fact-Check CBS Should Have Done (But Didn't)

Blog ››› November 13, 2013 4:36 PM EST ››› SIMON MALOY 

CBS News, already in trouble for not bothering to fact-check sensational claims about the Benghazi attacks, has stepped in it again with an exclusive story on the Affordable Care Act that has quickly fallen apart. On November 11, CBS News reported that the "project manager in charge of building the federal health care website was apparently kept in the dark about serious failures in the website's security." CBS investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson's report was based on an exclusive "first look at a partial transcript" of closed-door testimony by project manager Henry Chao that was likely leaked to the network by Republicans on the House Oversight Committee. Other media outlets picked up CBS's scoop and ran with it.

According to Attkisson, Chao was presented with "a memo that outlined important security risks discovered in the insurance system," and said he was unaware of that memo. CBS News reported that this indicated that Chao had been "kept in the dark about serious failures in the website's security" that "could lead to identity theft among people buying insurance."
But as Washington Post media blogger Erik Wemple demonstrated, Rep. Gerald Connolly (D-VA) questioned Chao at a November 13 Oversight Committee hearing and revealed how misleading CBS News' report was. The memo shown to Chao dealt with portions of the website that aren't yet in use -- not the website as it currently exists, as the partial transcript and CBS News' report wrongly suggested. And those portions won't include personally identifiable information, making it impossible for the security risks to lead to identity theft.
Here's the video and transcript of Connolly's questioning of Chao:

CONNOLLY: Mr. Chao, during your interview with committee staff on November 1, you were presented with a document you had not seen before. And it was entitled "Authority to Operate," signed by your boss on September 3, 2013, is that correct?

CHAO: Correct.

CONNOLLY: The Republican staffers told you during that interview that this document indicated there were two open high-risk findings in the federally facilitated marketplace launched October 1. Is that correct?

CHAO: Correct.

CONNOLLY: This surprised you at the time.

CHAO: Can I just qualify that a bit? It was dated September 3 and it was referring to two parts of the system that were already--

CONNOLLY: You are jumping ahead of me. We are going to get there. So when you were asked questions about that document, you told the staffers you needed to check with officials at CMS [Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services] who oversee security testing to understand the context, is that correct?

CHAO: Correct.

CONNOLLY: The staffers continued to ask you questions, nonetheless, and then they -- or somebody -- leaked parts of your transcript to CBS Evening News, is that correct?

CHAO: Seems that way.

CONNOLLY: Since that interview, have you had a chance to follow up on your suggestion to check with CMS officials on the context?

CHAO: I have had some discussions about the nature of the high findings that were in the document.

CONNOLLY: Right. And this document it turns out discusses only the risks associated with two modules, one for dental plans and one for the qualified health plans, is that correct?

CHAO: Yes.

CONNOLLY: And neither of those modules is active right now, is that correct?

CHAO: That's correct.

CONNOLLY: So the September 3 document did in fact, not apply to the entire federally facilitated marketplace despite the assertions of the leak to CBS notwithstanding, is that correct?

CHAO: That's correct.

CONNOLLY: And these modules allow insurance companies to submit their dental and health care plan information to the marketplace is that correct?

CHAO: Correct.

CONNOLLY: That means that those modules do not contain or transmit any personally identifiable information on individual consumers, is that correct?

CHAO: Correct.

CONNOLLY: So to be clear, these modules don't transmit any specific user information, is that correct?

CHAO: Correct.

CONNOLLY: So when CBS Evening News ran its report based on a leak, presumably from the majority staff, but we don't know, of a partial transcript, excerpts from a partial transcript, they said the security issues raised in the document, and I quote, "could lead to identity theft among buying insurance," that cannot be true based on what we just established in our back and forth, is that correct?

CHAO: That's correct. I think there was some rearrangement of the words that I used during the testimony in how it was portrayed.

CONNOLLY: So to just summarize, correct me if I'm wrong, the document leaked to CBS Evening News didn't in fact not relate to parts of the website that were active on October 1. They did not relate to any part of the system that handles personal consumer information, and there, in fact, was no possibility of identity theft, despite the leak.

CHAO: Correct.

CONNOLLY: Thank you, Mr. Chao. I yield back.

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CBS Ran Misleading Story On HealthCare.gov Security Issues

TPMLivewire

WaPo: CBS Ran Misleading Story On HealthCare.gov Security Issues

AP Photo / J. Scott Applewhite

Caitlin MacNeal – November 13, 2013, 6:37 PM EST4665

CBS News aired a misleading report on Monday about security issues concerning the federal health insurance exchange website based on leaked partial transcripts of a health care official's testimony, according to the Washington Post.
CBS reported that Henry Chao, lead project manager of Healthcare.gov at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, had been unaware of two major security holes in the website that could lead to identity theft.

"CBS News has learned that the project manager in charge of building the federal health care website was apparently kept in the dark about serious failures in the website's security," the CBS report reads. "Those failures could lead to identity theft among buying insurance."
When questioned by Rep. Gerald Connolly (D-VA) Wednesday at a House Oversight and Government Reform committee hearing, it became apparent that the security flaws that the CBS report discussed could not actually lead to identity theft.
According to Chao, the two modules the CBS report referenced are not currently active on the exchange website and that neither module used personally identifiable information.
Connolly, while questioning Chao on Wednesday, implied that the partial leaked transcript came from Republican committee staff.
“So when CBS Evening News ran its report based on a leak, presumably from the [Republican] staff, but we don't know — of a partial transcript — excerpts from a partial transcript — they said the security issues raised in the document, and I quote, 'could lead to identity theft among buying insurance,' that cannot be true based on what we established in our back and forth. Is that correct?” Connolly asked during the hearing, as quoted by the Washington Post.
Chao responded that Connolly was correct.

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Another CBS News story comes under attack

By Erik Wemple 

 November 13 at 1:53 pm


There may never be a more classic line in the pantheon of empty boasts by competitive news organizations. On Monday night, CBS News reporter Sharyl Attkisson came up with what looked like a significant story: “Memo warned of “limitless” security risks for HealthCare.gov.” As the story and on-air broadcast alleged, the person entrusted with putting together HealthCare.gov was “apparently kept in the dark about serious failures in the website’s security. Those failures could lead to identity theft among [those] buying insurance.”
How did Attkisson know this? “CBS News has obtained the first look at a partial transcript of his testimony.”
Which is like saying you’ve got the exclusive on half the story.
To consume Attkisson’s story is to freak out about HealthCare.gov. The scoop here is that Henry Chao, Healthcare.gov’s chief project manager at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), somehow didn’t know about a Sept. 3 memo warning of issues on that troubled government Web site. The transcript to which Attkisson gained access spells out some serious alleged difficulties with the site. From the televised report: “In excerpts we’ve obtained, Chao was asked about a memo that outlined important security risks discovered in the insurance system. Chao said he was unaware of this Sept. 3 government memo written by another senior official at CMS. It found two high-risk issues which are redacted for security reasons. The memo said, ‘The threat and risk potential to the system is limitless.’ The memo shows CMS gave deadlines of mid-2014 and early 2015 to address them.”
Via Attkisson’s treatment, Chao comes off looking clueless about a critical aspect of HealthCare.gov. In her narrative, a Republican lawyer questioning Chao asked him if he found it “surprising” that he’d never seen that memo before. Chao replied, “‘Yeah . . . I mean, wouldn’t you be surprised if you were me?’ He later added: ‘It is disturbing. I mean, I don’t deny that this is . . . a fairly nonstandard way’ to proceed.”
In a hearing of the House oversight and government reform committee today, Attkisson’s story received something of a public fact-check. Rep. Gerald Connolly, apparently rankled by the CBS News piece, launched a series of pointed questions at Chao. The short take from the exchange is this: The CBS News report looks completely misleading. Here’s a selective summary of what Connolly discussed with Chao:
Connolly: Correct that Republicans presented you with a document you hadn’t seen before? Chao: Correct.
Connolly: Correct that the document indicated that there were two “open high-risk” findings in Obamacare exchange? Chao: Correct.
Connolly: Correct that someone leaked parts of your transcript to CBS News? Chao: “It seems that way.”
Connolly: Correct that the document discusses risks relating to two Web site modules on dental plans and qualified health plans? Chao: Correct.
Connolly: Correct that neither of those modules is active at this point? Chao: Correct.
Connolly: Correct that the Sept. 3 memo did not apply to the Obamacare marketplace? Chao: Correct.
Connolly: Correct that modules do not contain any personally identifiable information on consumers? Chao: Correct.
“So when CBS Evening News ran its report based on a leak, presumably from the [Republican] staff, but we don’t know — of a partial transcript — excerpts from a partial transcript — they said the security issues raised in the document, and I quote, ‘could lead to identity theft among buying insurance,’ that cannot be true based on what we established in our back and forth. Is that correct?”
Chao replied: “That’s correct. I think there was some rearrangement of the words I used during the testimony and how it was portrayed.”
The Erik Wemple Blog raised similar questions to CBS News yesterday. It declined to comment.
Attkisson’s story did contain this nod to the administration’s position: “Health and Human Services told CBS News the privacy and security of consumers’ personal information are a top priority, and consumers can trust their information is protected by stringent security standards.”

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What Is CBS Hiding? Who Is CBS Protecting at 60 Minutes?

What Is CBS Hiding? Who Is CBS Protecting at 60 Minutes?

Blog ››› 3 hours and 44 minutes ago ››› ERIC BOEHLERT 

Journalism veterans and media observers continue to strike the same chord while launching a chorus of criticism at CBS News in recent days: The network needs to be transparent and explain exactly what happened with its botched Benghazi report, and start detailing how such an obviously flawed report made in onto the most-watched news program in America.
And yet it's silence from CBS, which is now stonewalling press inquiries, as well as the calls for an outside review of its Benghazi reporting. CBS' refusal to undergo a public examination in the wake of such a landmark blunder stands in stark contrast to how news organizations have previously dealt with black eyes; news organizations that once included CBS News.
CBS is now taking a radically different approach. There appears to have been a corporate decision made that granting members of an independent review panel unfettered access to 60 Minutes represents a greater danger than the deep damage currently being done to the network's brand via the two-week-old scandal.
So again and again the question bounces back to this: What is CBS hiding? And who is CBS protecting?
I'm sure network executives there are embarrassed by the controversy and wish the report hadn't aired as it did. There's a reason Jeff Fager, Chairman of CBS News (above left), ranked it as among the worst mistakes in the nearly 50 year history of 60 Minutes. But as we learn more and more about the errors and oversights, it's becoming increasingly difficult to understand the magnitude of the malfeasance; the refusal by CBS to follow even rudimentary rules of journalism.
In a small but telling example, Mother Jones recently reviewed the Benghazi book that CBS' discredited "witness," Dylan Davies,  co-wrote, and which CBS supposedly relied on to corroborate this tale, which included him informing the FBI about his heroic actions the night of the attack at the U.S. compound in Benghazi. (It was later confirmed Davies wasn't even at the compound and the book was quickly recalled.)  Mother Jones found Davies' published account to be completely, and almost comically, unbelievable:

Davies' improbable account of FBI agents weeping and spouting grateful platitudes only underscores how negligent 60 Minutes was in vetting its story. Even if the FBI wouldn't confirm Davies' account, why didn't they corroborate his tale with others who'd been there?

But is being embarrassed really justification for not trying to find out why the mistakes were made and to inform viewers what happened? And if CBS refuses to learn from these sloppy mistakes, isn't the network guaranteed to repeat them?
As it stonewalls, CBS cannot avoid the fact that in 2004 when 60 Minutes II was caught in a crossfire of conservative outrage after airing a disputed report about President Bush's Vietnam War record, the network appointed a former Republican attorney general, Richard Thornburgh, to investigate what went wrong. The review panel was given "full access and complete cooperation from CBS News and CBS, as well as all of the resources necessary to complete the task." Those resources included reporters' notes, e-mails, and draft scripts. The panel worked for three months, interviewed 66 people, and issued an-often scathing 234-page report.
Today, that standard established by CBS is being purposefully bypassed. But why? Is it a fear of even further embarrassment? If you're asking what could be more embarrassing than the current set of facts in which CBS was duped by an "eyewitness" impostor, the answer is, plenty. Imagine the possibly explosive findings to these questions:
*Did CBS executives have internal discussions about the network's clear conflict of interest with regards to Davies' book being published by CBS-owned Simon & Schuster and decided not to reference that conflict in the final Benghazi report?
*Did the impending book release impact the reporting in the segment or the timing of the broadcast?
*Did 60 Minutes producers have extensive contacts with partisan Republican sources while reporting on Benghazi?
*Did any CBS executives express serious doubts about Davies' account only to be overruled by Logan?
*Were script changes made to remove any doubts about Davies' account?  
*Did any co-workers think that Logan was pursuing a political agenda with the Benghazi report?
My guess is that a truly transparent review would find 'yes' answers to two or three of those questions. But without an independent inquiry we won't know. In that regard, refusing to appoint a review panel covers up more bad news, which is what CBS seemingly wants. But a review could also help exonerate CBS with regards to some allegations, and address doubts about its professionalism.
Recall that one of the key conclusions from the National Guard panel review was that political bias did not play a role in how the controversial 2004 story was put together. For the Benghazi story though, it's impossible to know if CBS is equally free of prejudice unless there's an independent assessment.
The other key question: By resisting an honest and open evaluation, are CBS bosses trying to protect key players? Keep in mind that following the release of the National Guard panel review, several employees were fired, including the executive producer of 60 Minutes II. Given the extent of the Benghazi screw-up, it's likely an outside review today would find fault with the executive producer of today's 60 Minutes. Who is executive producer of 60 Minutes? It's Jeff Fager, who also runs CBS News. (The dual titles seem like an obvious conflict of interest.)
And since 60 Minutes correspondent Lara Logan says she was deeply involved in the reporting and the editing of the Benghazi piece, it's likely she would be the target of a stinging rebuke. So is CBS refusing to appoint an independent panel in an effort to protect its news boss Fager and its rising star Logan?
It certainly looks that way.

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The Media's Obamacare "Horror Stories" Continue To Collapse 

 November 5, 2013 4:02 PM EST ››› JUSTIN BERRIER 

Following the October 1 roll out of the Affordable Care Act's exchanges, media outlets hyped several anecdotal stories of people who will be negatively affected by the law. These stories have ranged from the misleading to the outright false. 

Media "Horror Stories" Conflict With Reality MYTH: ACA Caused Cancer Patient To Lose Her Coverage. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, cancer patient Edie Littlefield Sundby blamed the ACA for the loss of her coverage, calling herself "one of the losers" of the health care law: For almost seven years I have fought and survived stage-4 gallbladder cancer, with a five-year survival rate of less than 2% after diagnosis. I am a determined fighter and extremely lucky. But this luck may have just run out: My affordable, lifesaving medical insurance policy has been canceled effective Dec. 31. My choice is to get coverage through the government health exchange and lose access to my cancer doctors, or pay much more for insurance outside the exchange (the quotes average 40% to 50% more) for the privilege of starting over with an unfamiliar insurance company and impaired benefits. Countless hours searching for non-exchange plans have uncovered nothing that compares well with my existing coverage. But the greatest source of frustration is Covered California, the state's Affordable Care Act health-insurance exchange and, by some reports, one of the best such exchanges in the country. After four weeks of researching plans on the website, talking directly to government exchange counselors, insurance companies and medical providers, my insurance broker and I are as confused as ever. Time is running out and we still don't have a clue how to best proceed. [The Wall Street Journal, 11/3/13] REALITY: Sundby's Coverage Is Being Dropped Because Her Insurer Did Not Want To Pay For Sicker Patients. In a ThinkProgress post, Igor Volsky pointed out that Sundby's dropped coverage is a result of her insurer, United Healthcare, being unwilling to insure sicker patients: But Sundby shouldn't blame reform -- United Healthcare dropped her coverage because they've struggled to compete in California's individual health care market for years and didn't want to pay for sicker patients like Sundby. The company, which only had 8,000 individual policy holders in California out of the two million who participate in the market, announced (along with a second insurer, Aetna) that it would be pulling out of the individual market in May. The company could not compete with Anthem Blue Cross, Blue Shield of California and Kaiser Permanente, who control more than 80 percent of the individual market. "Over the years, it has become more difficult to administer these plans in a cost-effective way for our members," UnitedHealth spokeswoman Cheryl Randolph explained. "We will continue to keep a major presence in California, focusing instead on large and small employers." [Think Progress, 11/4/13] MYTH: Obamacare Caused Businessman To Cut Back On Employment. On the October 11 edition of Fox News' Hannity ¸ host Sean Hannity interviewed Paul and Michelle Cox, business owners who claimed that ACA regulations were causing them to "cut back on hiring full-time employees" and "keep [employees] below 30 hours": MICHELLE COX: We received a letter from our insurance company stating that we would no longer be able to have our existing health plan, despite the president's promise that we would be able to keep that existing plan. As a business, we are jumping through more hoops, more regulation, more paperwork. And we've also cut back on hiring full-time employees because of the health care costs involved, even though we'd love to do that. HANNITY: You'd like to hire full-time employees -- MICHELLE COX: We would love to. HANNITY: -- but you -- so you're going to keep them below 30 hours. MICHELLE COX: Exactly. PAUL COX: We've had to keep them below 30 hours or we wouldn't be able to -- you know, not that we wouldn't want to pay it, we just wouldn't be able to -- MICHELLE COX: Yes. PAUL COX: -- stay in business and pay it. [Fox News, Hannity, 10/11/13] REALITY: Cox's Business Has Only Four Employees And Not Subject To ACA Regulations. In an October 18 Salon post, Eric Stern, a senior counsel to former Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer, contacted Paul Cox after the segment and found that his business employed only four people, well below the 49-employee threshold that would have affected his business: First I spoke with Paul Cox of Leicester, N.C. He and his wife Michelle had lamented to Hannity that because of Obamacare, they can't grow their construction business and they have kept their employees below a certain number of hours, so that they are part-timers. Obamacare has no effect on businesses with 49 employees or less. But in our brief conversation on the phone, Paul revealed that he has only four employees. Why the cutback on his workforce? "Well," he said, "I haven't been forced to do so, it's just that I've chosen to do so. I have to deal with increased costs." What costs? And how, I asked him, is any of it due to Obamacare? There was a long pause, after which he said he'd call me back. He never did. There is only one Obamacare requirement that applies to a company of this size: workers must be notified of the existence of the "healthcare.gov" [removed the underline] website, the insurance exchange. That's all. [Salon, 10/18/13] MYTH: ACA Caused Family's Premiums To Double. Hannity's October 11 show also featured Allison and Curt De Nijs, a couple who claimed their existing health care plan was being cancelled and their new health insurance policy would double: ALLISON DE NIJS: Well, we became self-employed three years ago. And over the course of three years, our insurance has jumped 49 percent. We just got our letter from our insurance carrier that our policy is going to be terminated, and we're going to be transitioned to an ACA-compliant policy because it has to include essential health care benefits. HANNITY: Right. ALLISON DE NIJS: And we don't even have insurance for our daughter, who has a pre-existing condition. So we're looking at probably $20,000 in premiums next year. HANNITY: Up from? ALLISON DE NIJS: Up from -- well, originally, it started out at about $740 and going up to $1,105 next year. HANNITY: Wow. ALLISON DE NIJS: And plus our daughter's going to be about $600 a month. HANNITY: So you're going to pay 13 -- 19,000 grand a year in health insurance, between you -- just you guys and your daughter, $19,000? ALLISON DE NIJS: Yes. HANNITY: Which is how much higher than what it was? Twice as high? CURT DE NIJS: Twice as high. [Fox News, Hannity, 10/11/13] REALITY: The Couple Had Not Compared ACA Plan Pricing And Would Likely Save Money On The Exchange. Salon's Stern also contacted Allison De Nijs, who admitted that she had not shopped on the exchange. After researching their situation, Stern found that the couple would save 60% on their health care costs: I asked Allison if she'd shopped on the exchange, to see what a plan might cost under the new law. She said she hadn't done so because she'd heard the website was not working. Would she try it out when it's up and running? Perhaps, she said. She told me she has long opposed Obamacare, and that the president should have focused on tort reform as a solution to bringing down the price of healthcare. I tried an experiment and shopped on the exchange for Allison and Kurt. Assuming they don't smoke and have a household income too high to be eligible for subsidies, I found that they would be able to get a plan for around $7,600, which would include coverage for their uninsured daughter. This would be about a 60 percent reduction from what they would have to pay on the pre-Obamacare market. [Salon, 10/18/13] MYTH: ACA Caused Couple's Premiums To Increase By 50 To 72 Percent. Hannity also hosted Robbie and Tina Robinson, who claimed that their plan was being canceled and similar coverage would increase their policy's cost by 50 to 72 percent: ROBBIE ROBINSON: Well, Sean, I've been -- I've been self-employed for 20 years and -- [...] ROBBIE ROBINSON: But for about 20 years now. And recently, we heard from our insurance provider that our current policy will be canceled, no longer available when it ends. And our new policy that we can have won't have the same benefits to it. Anything similar, though, is going to rise between, like, 50 to 72 percent, and it'll have things in it that we have no choice. Like, we'll have to have maternity benefits. And we're not planning on having any more kids. HANNITY: Yes. ROBBIE ROBINSON: And we're going to have to have pediatric eye care and other things like that, and we -- our kids are all away from home. HANNITY: Yes. ROBBIE ROBINSON: So... HANNITY: So it's not -- it's not -- it's not a plan that you need. ROBBIE ROBINSON: Exactly. [Fox News, Hannity, 10/11/13] REALITY: The Robinsons Could Access Coverage For 63 Percent Less Under ACA Exchanges. Stern contacted the Robinsons and found that they hadn't shopped for coverage on the exchanges, where they could have accessed a policy that would cost 63 percent less than their current plan: When I spoke to Robbie, he said he and Tina have been paying a little over $800 a month for their plan, about $10,000 a year. And the ACA-compliant policy that will cost 50-75 percent more? They said this information was related to them by their insurance agent. Had they shopped on the exchange yet, I asked? No, Tina said, nor would they. They oppose Obamacare and want nothing to do with it. Fair enough, but they should know that I found a plan for them for, at most, $3,700 a year, 63 percent less than their current bill. It might cover things that they don't need, but so does every insurance policy. [Salon, 10/18/13] MYTH: ACA Would Have Replaced Woman's Adequate Coverage With A Much More Expensive Plan. CBS This Morning highlighted Dianne Barrette as an example of someone who is losing coverage because of the ACA: In California, Kaiser Permanente terminated policies for 160,000 people. In Florida, at least 300,000 people are losing coverage. That includes 56-year-old Dianne Barrette. Last month, she received a letter from Blue Cross Blue Shield informing her as of January 2014, she would lose her current plan. Barrette pays $54 a month. The new plan she's being offered would run $591 a month -- 10 times more than what she currently pays. Barrette said, "What I have right now is what I am happy with and I just want to know why I can't keep what I have. Why do I have to be forced into something else?" [CBS, CBS This Morning, 10/28/13] REALITY: Barrette's Plan Could Have Bankrupted Her With Any Hospitalization. On his Washington Post blog, Erik Wemple noted that Barrette's existing coverage would not have covered hospitalization and "could well have bankrupted" her: More coverage may provide a deeper understanding of the ins and outs of Barrette's situation: Her current health insurance plan, she says, doesn't cover "extended hospital stays; it's not designed for that," says Barrette. Well, does it cover any hospitalization? "Outpatient only," responds Barrette. Nor does it cover ambulance service and some prenatal care. On the other hand, says Barrette, it does cover "most of my generic drugs that I need" and there's a $50 co-pay for doctors' appointments. "It's all I could afford right now," says Barrette. In sum, it's a pray-that-you-don't-really-get-sick "plan." When asked if she ever required hospitalization, Barrette says she did. It happened when she was employed by Raytheon, which provided "excellent benefits." Ever since she left the company and started working as an independent contractor, "I haven't been hospitalized since then, thank God." Hospitalization is among the core requirements for health-care plans under Obamacare. [The Washington Post, Erik Wemple Blog, 10/28/13]

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