During the 2008 campaign and the 2009 battle over his signature healthcare “reform” scheme, Obama claimed health insurers attributed his late mother’s cancer to pre-existing conditions and denied her coverage. A heartbreaking story, the only problem is it’s not true.
The Washington Examiner dives in the dumpster for us:
The news is in “A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mother,” a generally admiring new biography written by former New York Times reporter Janny Scott.
…Scott, who had access to Dunham’s correspondence from the time, reveals that Dunham unquestionably had health coverage. “Ann’s compensation for her job in Jakarta had included health insurance, which covered most of the costs of her medical treatment,” Scott writes. “Once she was back in Hawaii, the hospital billed her insurance company directly, leaving Ann to pay only the deductible and any uncovered expenses, which, she said, came to several hundred dollars a month.”
Scott writes that Dunham, who wanted to be compensated for those costs as well as for her living expenses, “filed a separate claim under her employer’s disability
insurance policy.” It was that claim [emphasis ours], with the insurance company
CIGNA, that was denied in August 1995 because, CIGNA investigators said, Dunham’s condition was known before she was covered by the policy
Dunham protested the decision and, Scott writes, "informed CIGNA that she was turning over the case to 'my son and attorney, Barack Obama.' " CIGNA did not budge.
In September 1995, Dunham traveled to New York for an evaluation at the renowned Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Returning to Hawaii, she began a new course of treatment. She died in November.
A dozen years later, her son turned her ordeal into a campaign pitch for national
health care. But the story Obama told, Scott writes, was "abbreviated" -- the
abbreviation was to leave out the fact that Ann Dunham had health insurance that
paid for her treatment. "
Though he often suggested that she was denied health coverage because of a pre-existing condition," Scott writes, "it appears from her correspondence that she was only denied disability coverage."
That's a different story altogether. One the president never told.
Read more at the Washington Examiner:Fresh doubt cast on Obama's health care story
Then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) addresses a rally in the gymnasium of
Concord High School January 4, 2008 in Concord before the 2008 New Hampshire
primary, where the Democratic presidential hopeful made this remark examined by
Examiner columnist Byron York: 'She was in her hospital room looking at
insurance forms because the insurance company said that maybe she had a
pre-existing condition and maybe they wouldn't have to reimburse her for her
medical bills.
Is Obama so stupid he can’t distinguish between health and disability insurance (some genius attorney!) or a stinking liar, the Prevaricator-in-Chief?"
