Look for Dianne Barrette to be splashed across the screens of every Fox News show in the coming days. She’s the woman from Winter Haven, Fla. who appeared on CBS today (yes, dirty, liberal mainstream media!), complaining that her insurance is going up by ten times.
From the transcript:
Last month, [Barrette] received a letter from Blue Cross/Blue Shield informing her as of January 2014, she would lose her current plan. Barrette pays $54 a month. The new plan she’s being offered would run $591 a month, ten times more than what she currently pays. “What I have right now is what I’m happy with, and I just want to know why I can’t keep what I have. Why do I have to be forced into something else?” [says Barrette]
Sure enough, I happened to hear about five minutes of the Sean Hannity radio show today and naturally, he’s now repeating the canard, “Insurance rates are rising by ten times!” with no context–a Hannity specialty.
As with the know-nothings who appeared on Hannity’s television show last week, a diligent reporter followed up; in this case, Erik Wemple. As Wemple writes:
More coverage may provide a deeper understanding of the ins and outs of Barrette’s situation: Her current health insurance plan, she says, doesn’t cover “extended hospital stays; it’s not designed for that,” says Barrette. Well, does it cover any hospitalization? “Outpatient only,” responds Barrette. Nor does it cover ambulance service and some prenatal care. On the other hand, says Barrette, it does cover “most of my generic drugs that I need” and there’s a $50 co-pay for doctors’ appointments. “It’s all I could afford right now,” says Barrette.
In sum, it’s a pray-that-you-don’t-really-get-sick “plan.” When asked if she ever required hospitalization, Barrette says she did. It happened when she was employed by Raytheon, which provided “excellent benefits.” Ever since she left the company and started working as an independent contractor, “I haven’t been hospitalized since then, thank God.” Hospitalization is among the core requirements for health-care plans under Obamacare.
As Wemple notes, Ms. Barrette’s current coverage doesn’t cover hospital stays at all; even a short stay could well bankrupt her under her current insurance.
But let’s look a little further. From Wemple’s article, we know the county Ms. Barrette lives in (Polk County), her age (56) and her income (about $30,000 annually). That’s enough to go shopping for health insurance for her. According the results at healthcare.gov, she could get a catastrophic plan for $235 per month, a bronze plan for $327, and a silver plan for $371. All of these are cheaper than the $591 she claims her new insurance would cost her.
Furthermore, she is eligible for subsidies because her annual income is less than $46,000. Plugging in her data into the Kaiser Family Foundation Subsidy Calculator, we find that, yes indeed, she is eligible for a subsidy. That Silver plan would actually cost her $209 per month, a Bronze plan $97 per month. The Silver plan would pay 70% of her health care costs (the Bronze plan, 60%), and her maximum out-of-pocket would be $6350. She’s not likely to go bankrupt with either plan if her appendix bursts.
Listening to Hannity today, these subtleties are completely lost in favor of repeating the headline, “Under ObamaCare rates are increasing by as much as ten times!” I don’t expect much better from Fox News.
UPDATE: An article at DailyKos has more details about Ms. Barrette’s current plan:
We can see from the video that Dianne Barrette has “GoBlue plan 91”. This is a ‘limited benefit’ plan. It is widely understood that these plans are not replacments for comprehensive health insurance plans, and it’s easy to see why. If Ms. Barrette incurs $30,000 worth of medical care, the plan will pay somewhere between $50 and $500 depending on the services. There are two things you get from these plans: a provider to negotiate down rates for you, and a small amount covered by the insurer themselves. You can see the supporting documentation for this plan here:
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