Political Irony

Eric Stern wondered if the accusations by Fox News that Obamacare is a “train wreck” have any basis in reality. So he was very interested when Sean Hannity last week had three couples on his show, each of which had an Obamacare “horror story” to tell.

But their stories often didn’t make sense, so he decided to check them out. Stern knows quite a bit about the Affordable Care Act. He even worked as a senior advisor to a governor to help him deal with the new rules brought about by the law.

Stern actually tracked down all three couples who appeared on the show and talked to them to see what was going on. Unsurprisingly, all three couples had a strong dislike for Obamacare. But as he found out, none of this dislike has much to do with any actual experiences.

One couple runs a construction company, and claimed that Obamacare was hurting his business. But Stern found out that their construction business only has four employees, and Obamacare doesn’t affect businesses with fewer than 50 employees (other than to require them to tell their employees about the healthcare.gov website).

Another couple is currently paying around $13,200 a year for a health insurance policy that doesn’t even cover one of their children because of a preexisting condition. Had they looked up how much a new policy would cost them? No they hadn’t. So Stern looked it up, and found that under Obamacare they could get a better policy that would cover all their children for only $7,600 a year.

The third couple was told that their new Obamacare-compliant policy would cost them 50 to 75% more than their current policy. Who told them that? Their insurance company agent! They would not look it up on the government website because they hate Obamacare and want nothing to do with it. So Stern looked it up for them and found that they could get a similar plan for 63% less than they are currently paying.

These are Hannity’s best examples of Obamacare train wrecks?