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Barack Obama's Mother Ad
This is probably not a big deal and easy to clear up.
I'm troubled by Barack Obama's health insurance commercial that's running in Texas. In the commercial, he tells us his dying mother was more worried about paying her medical bills than getting well.
At the time his mother died of cancer, Senator Obama was 34, a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law, working as an associate attorney at a Chicago law firm and teaching Constitutional Law. Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I really doubt he let his mother worry about paying her medical bills while she was dying.
It's one thing to borrow a phrase or two from other politicians, but it's a whole other deal to make up things about your mom. I'm not convinced Senator Obama did that, but there is something a little too slick about that commercial. Something a little too vague.
I've heard his mom actually had health insurance, although that's not the message conveyed by the ad. I don't know if that's true or not. It could be a lie. Senator Obama seems very sincere in the commercial, and a lot of lies circulate on the web. But if she had health insurance, and the ad is aimed at people who don't have it, that's misleading.
Maybe the real situation was just too complex to convey in a political ad. Cancer can be financially devastating, even for the insured. After you've been diagnosed with cancer, you can't get health insurance. Insurance companies deny claims and treatment. Sometimes our parents just don't want our help. They don't want to be a burden. Maybe Senator Obama should just lay out a few more facts.
I feel pretty uncomfortable even asking about Senator Obama's mother, even though he was the one who brought her up in the first place, but he never actually says she didn't have health insurance. He just implies it.
By way of full disclosure, I'm from Texas. My mother is 92, has health insurance and three grown kids who would hock everything they own to keep her from worrying about medical bills. I don't support either candidate. I used to support Senator Clinton, but I don't like the way she backed off from NBC.
Comments (12)
My mother is not this type (thankfully), but I know a lot of mothers who worry about finances even when everthing's under control. Face it, some mothers just worry. (I know a lot of fathers who do it, too.)
February 19, 2008 11:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Wow. You have no idea of how much cancer treatments can cost.
February 19, 2008 12:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
OK, apparently you've never heard more of the story, and you wouldn't in an ad -- they have time limits.
Barack's mother had recently begun a new job when they diagnosed her cancer. She was worried the new insurer would declare her cancer a "pre-existing condition." If you know anything about insurance, you know that's one way you can be denied coverage. It's a very real worry with our current system. People won't leave jobs they hate because of health coverage; they won't pursue dreams of their own businesses, etc.
That's the rest of the story. On the trail, Barack usually includes those extra bits of information.
February 19, 2008 12:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, actually, we have COBRA. You can elect to continue your old coverage. So why didn't she just keep her old insurance under COBRA? Maybe he should redo the ad and say:
"During those last painful months my mother worried more about whether her insurance would pay for her treatment than about getting well."
That would be more honest. But then he would have to explain the COBRA thing.
February 19, 2008 1:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
You can rest easy. He's explained all of this repeatedly. On questions like this you can often avoid being "troubled" and "concerned" if you would simply use google to find what you say you're looking for. That's generally preferable to relying on things you've "heard" but that you think might be "lies" but that you nevertheless feel compelled to repeat even though it makes you "uncomfortable" to do so.
Google would have found comments such as this one for you pretty easily:
That's from last September, BTW. This isn't a new attack, and certainly not one he hasn't answered previously.
February 19, 2008 12:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
And that's what you think the commercial says? I wouldn't know about other "attacks." But let me try to catch up. She was worried that her insurance might not cover her pre-condition? Did it? I don't know. Maybe I need to see the commercial again. The way I remember it he says during those last painful years -- that's a long time -- she worried more about paying her bills than getting well. Then he goes on to talk about health insurance. I guess I have to say the ad is misleading, then. See, the point isn't what he says on the trail. It's what he's doing with the ad. The ad is about health insurance. He could have said my mother wasn't sure she was covered by insurance, but he didn't. Is that honest?
February 19, 2008 1:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
You say you "wouldn't know about other attacks" ... but you didn't come up with this one on your own, did you? You got it from somewhere else, and repeated it, but it's such a flimsy attack that you can't even spin a coherent defense of it.
You said you had "heard" that she had health insurance, but from sources you thought might be lying (not that it stopped you from reposting it). Now you know that she became ill between jobs. And you know how the health care system works in this country, so you know what that can mean. So you understand why she was worried about how her medical expenses would be paid. And your argument here is what?
You slide deeper into the slime when you write "I guess that would be moving coming from a teenager who had to helplessly watch his mom go through something like that. But from a brilliant lawyer?". So the fact that he's a brilliant lawyer means that there's nothing"moving" about him having to watch his mother die of cancer, and watching her at the same time have to confront an adversarial insurance corporation. Lovely.
February 19, 2008 5:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry. As difficult as it has to be for someone like you to believe, I actually came up with the questions on my own. But you, who google so well, apparently have trouble coming up with simple answers.
Did the Insurance Company really deny her claim?
Who was the Insurance Company?
Did her bills get paid or not? Who paid them?
If the problem was whether her Insurance covered her condition, why doesn't the ad talk about that?
What is really interesting to me is how the ad agency cleverly morphs the real situation he describes in his early campaign speeches into the "universal health care" ad running in Texas.
If you don't see something phoney about a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law saying he watched his mother struggling with paperwork, I can't help you.
February 20, 2008 9:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
http://youtube.com/watch?v=DQM5fQOaX-Y
Here's the commercial. Listening again, I see he says last painful months. I think the point that the ad is misleading is still valid.
February 19, 2008 1:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
"She wasn't thinking about coming to terms with her own mortality," he said in Santa Barbara, Calif. "She had been diagnosed just as she was transitioning between jobs. And she wasn't sure whether insurance was going to cover the medical expenses because they might consider this a pre-existing condition. I remember just being heartbroken, seeing her struggle through the paperwork and the medical bills and the insurance forms. So, I have seen what it's like when somebody you love is suffering because of a broken health-care system. And it's wrong. It's not who we are as a people."
I guess that would be moving coming from a teenager who had to helplessly watch his mom go through something like that. But from a brilliant lawyer? Anyway, thanks for the info. Good luck in the campaign.
February 19, 2008 1:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Some time ago, the Obama campaign asked me to send them my healthcare crisis story. So basically they wanted to know how disappointing my healthcare had been for me. I had cancer several years ago which I shared with them. My surgeon took me as a patient even though he was not a doctor on my list. I had two surgeries. Both cost 10,000 each. Of those two bills, my insurance paid approx 900 each surgery which would include hospital and doctor. The hospital was super to me and of course I can't say enough for my very busy surgeon that could have easily refused to treat me. I have other equally upbeat stories. For me personally, the system has not let me down. I have absolutely no complaints maybe because I wasn't expecting perfection. Anyway the Obama campaign obviously did not use my story since they were looking for a different spin on the healthcare issue.
February 27, 2008 12:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
Not only are you underestimating the cost of treatment, you are overestimating his probable salary. Just because one graduates from Harvard Law School does not mean one gains a large paycheck. He chose, in fact, to work for a small civil rights firm. Likely with a ridiculously small salary. Not to mention student loan bills.
August 21, 2008 2:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
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