If a government program signed into law by former President George W. Bush was causing cancer patients to go broke, brain tumor victims to pay more for their insurance, and was leaving HIV/AIDS patients in the lurch - you can bet the Big Three news networks would’ve packed their shows with these tragic tales. But these horrific stories and more, all caused by ObamaCare, have yet to be given even one second of airtime on ABC, CBS or NBC’s evening and morning shows in 2014.
In fact, there has been only one network report this year that profiled individuals harmed by ObamaCare’s rules. On the February 8 CBS Evening News, correspondent Carter Evans told viewers about a four-year-old girl sent to Seattle Children’s Hospital by her family doctor, only to be told later that the hospital has been deemed “out of network” by the ObamaCare policy. But that was the only time in 2014 that the CBS has mentioned victims of ObamaCare’s rules, and the report was shunted to a weekend when news audiences are smaller.
The following is a list grievous accounts of suffering, both physical and financial, brought on by ObamaCare that the Big Three networks have thus far ignored in 2014:
■ A pastor in Iowa [1], who is covered under ObamaCare, decried “there’s no compassion in the Affordable Care Act,” after he was told just minutes before receiving life-saving chemo that his treatments would not be covered. The pastor’s family has since emptied their savings account and are now $50,000 in debt.
■ In a February 23 Wall Street Journal [2] guest column Ralston College President Stephen Blackwood charged that ObamaCare made his mother’s fight with cancer a nightmare that will “accelerate her disease and death.” Right before going into surgery on February 12 Blackwood’s mother was informed that her new plan would not cover her cancer-related medications that are already costing her over $14,000. Blackwood wrote: “Obamacare made my mother’s old plan illegal, and it forced her to buy a new plan that would accelerate her disease and death...The ‘Affordable’ Care Act is a brutal, Procrustean disaster.”
■ A 62-year-old Las Vegas [3]
man who signed up for ObamaCare coverage through the Nevada state
exchange back in November (after numerous failed attempts that he
described were as hard as “reaching the third level of Doom” video game)
now owes $407,000 for care he received after a heart attack he suffered
in December. His policy was supposed to be in effect for the care he
received in January and February.
The office of Democratic Senator Harry Reid, who claimed on February 26 that “all” ObamaCare “horror stories” are “untrue,” even attempted to help this ACA victim. So far no reporter at ABC, CBS or NBC have used this story to refute Reid’s charge that the ACA “horror stories” were all false.
■ Breast cancer victim Josie Gracchi [4], up until January 1st of this year, had insurance and was scheduled for a January 3rd biopsy and follow-up treatment at one the largest private cancer treatment centers in the world: Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. But once 2014 arrived, her insurance was rolled into an ObamaCare health exchange. Gracchi now has no access to the surgeons she was working with, her biopsy and treatment have been postponed and she cant find comparable doctors and surgeons through the ObamaCare website. Fox News invited Gracchi on to plead for help from the president but so far neither ABC, CBS or NBC have acknowledged her story.
■ Unite Here!, a liberal hospitality industry union [5] representing 300,000 workers, slammed ObamaCare in a March report that concluded the law would shift a billion dollars to insurance companies that would uneven the playing field in the market and make employers cut back in hours and result in lesser pay.
■ An owner of a furniture store chain in Arkansas [6]charged that ObamaCare was costing jobs in Little Rock as he complained: “We would’ve probably already been open in Little Rock with a third store if this whole health care thing wouldn’t have taken place, but it scared the heck out of us...It’s taken the entrepreneurship out of the people that have the ability to grow and that’s sad.”
■ According to February 8 Reuters [7]article “Hundreds of people with HIV/AIDS in Louisiana trying to obtain coverage under President Barack Obamas healthcare reform are in danger of being thrown out of the insurance plan they selected in a dispute over federal subsidies and the interpretation of federal rules about preventing Obamacare fraud.”
■ A February 4 Los Angeles Times [8] article detailed the story of California resident Danielle Nelson who was promised by Anthem Blue cross that her oncologists would be covered in her new policy. Diagnosed with non-Hogkins lymphoma last year, a lump was found near her jaw in January. But when she went to her oncologist’s office, the Times reported she “promptly encountered a bright orange sign saying that Covered California plans are not accepted.” Nelson told the Times: “I’m a complete fan of the Affordable Care Act, but now I can’t sleep at night, I can’t imagine this is how President Obama wanted it to happen.”
For more on how the Big Three networks have buried ObamaCare bad news please see this study. [9]
— Geoffrey Dickens is Deputy Research Director at the Media Research Center. Follow Geoffrey Dickens on Twitter. [10]