The Media Peddles an Angry ObamaCare Customer Who Never Even Went to the Website

The Media Peddles an Angry ObamaCare Customer Who Never Even Went to the Website 

By: Sarah Jones more from Sarah Jones

Thursday, October, 31st, 2013, 10:27 am

 

We are being majorly trolled by the media.
The President is not impressed, we are not impressed, and Michael Hiltzik at the Los Angeles Times is also not impressed with the media’s ObamaCare reporting. He called out the media for running Deborah Cavallaro’s well televised rage (for example, CNBC during a segment titled, “Ordinary people talk huge price hikes” ) at Obama over her wild misunderstandings regarding ObamaCare.
It turns out that she never even tried to go to the website to sign up or get information.

Hilzik took a look at the facts and concluded, “If her insurance brokers told her what she says they did, they failed her. And the reporters who interviewed her without getting all the facts produced inexcusably shoddy work — from Maria Bartiromo on down. They not only did her a disservice, but failed the rest of us too.”
Cavallaro claimed there is nothing affordable about the Affordable Care Act, and Hilzik determines “at her current income, the act is vastly more affordable to her than what she’s paying now.” She is eligible for $200 a month in subsidies this year.
Hilzik writes, “The bottom line is that Cavallaro’s assertion that “there’s nothing affordable about the Affordable Care Act,” as she put it Tuesday on NBC Channel 4, is the product of her own misunderstandings, abetted by a passel of uninformed and incurious news reporters.”
 
Hilzik then goes on to detail her existing plan, which is a catastrophic plan. It does not comply with ObamaCare rules because it gives too little to the consumer. Let that sink in for a moment before we continue with Cavallaro’s misunderstanding of a law that is helping her, as she “qualifies her for a hefty federal premium subsidy.”
But of course, she didn’t factor the subsidies in. Yet she counts as her skills “value pricing, contract negotiations, organization and administrative skills”. No, I’m not trying to embarrass her; the point is, she clearly knows how to gather information and make assessments regarding contracts.
However, Hilzik discovers that she never even went to the website before going on national TV to decry the website and the entire law:

As for a replacement plan, she says she was quoted $478 a month by her insurance broker, but that’s a lot more than she’ll really be paying. Cavallaro told me she hasn’t checked the website of Covered California, the state’s health plan exchange, herself. I did so while we talked.

Yes, she’s been all over the news and yet she never even went to the California exchange to see what she’s actually be paying. Apparently no TV outlet was interested if she had done that or bothered to factcheck her.
However, in reality world where we check the facts before we form an opinion and go on national TV to tell people how we are getting screwed, Cavallaro has access to a new and better plan for less money.
Her plan was substandard and no, she could not see any doctor she wanted. Also, the California state run website does work save for problems with the part of the website where people can check whether their doctors are part of a network. As of October 15, Californians had started nearly 95,000 applications for health insurance through the state’s new exchange, so obviously many people were able to access the website.
Maybe you have to go to the website to access it, though, eh?
And she could have always picked up a phone. There is an 800 number on the front page of https://www.coveredca.com/.
I mean, seriously, have we come to this? No one in the media even asks her why she didn’t pick up a phone or if she even tried to get insurance? They never asked her what her rates would be under ObamaCare or factchecked those claims. Nope. TV loves haters.
Cavallaro claimed she will be paying 65% more for insurance, but Hilzik compared her options and under a Bronze plan via ACA, she can use her same current insurance company but get a better plan and pay $444 a year less than she’s paying now:

That buys her a $5,000 deductible (the same as she’s paying today) but the out-of-pocket limit is lower, $6,350. Office visits would be $60 for primary care and $70 for specialties, but again with no limit on the number of visits. Factor in the premium savings, and it’s hard to deny that she’s still ahead.

All is not perfect in ObamaCare land, but seeing as it’s a policy that will help 47 million Americans get insurance and helps those with insurance actually have access to what they pay for, it behooves the media to get you to hate it. We can’t have consumers being protected in any way from the corporate overlords.

The Media Peddles an Angry ObamaCare Customer Who Never Even Went to the Website was written by Sarah Jones for PoliticusUSA.

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