"book disputes obama on mother’s deathbed fight"

The White House on Wednesday declined to challenge an account in a new book that suggests that President Obama, in his campaign to overhaul American health care, mischaracterized a central anecdote about his mother’s deathbed dispute with her insurance company.

During his presidential campaign and subsequent battle over a health care law, Mr. Obama quieted crowds with the story of his mother’s fight with her insurer over whether her cancer was a pre-existing condition that disqualified her from coverage.

In offering the story as an argument for ending pre-existing condition exclusions by health insurers, the president left the clear impression that his mother’s fight was over health benefits for medical expenses.

But in “A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama's Mother,” author Janny Scott quotes from correspondence from the president’s mother to assert that the 1995 dispute concerned a Cigna disability insurance policy and that her actual health insurer had apparently reimbursed most of her medical expenses without argument.

More from New York Times here.

Obama sure does that a lot, doesn't he?



The expanding catalogue of Obamacare fables

Is there a health insurance horror story disseminated by the White House and its allies that ever turned out to be true? Obamacare advocates have exercised more artistic license than a convention of Photoshoppers. Now, a prominent sob story shilled by President Obama himself about his own mother is in doubt. It’s high past time to call their bluffs....The president’s Dunham sham-ecdote is just the latest entry in an ever-expanding catalogue of Obamacare fables: Click here for more.

Here's a funny post from Right Scoop:

Via Newsbusters, here we have a classic case of a news correction that totally nullifies the original story. And this one is pure schadenfraude.

Earlier this week, MessNBC’s clownish hothead Ed Schultz thought he had a real juicy item on his hands, one that conveniently impugned the editorial integrity of the despised Fox News Channel. Reuters had just reported that FNC’s parent company News Corp. not only didn’t pay any taxes over the last four years, but actually received $4.8 billion in refunds! Ha-ha! Schultz sneered as he informed his viewer(s) that this is the real reason Fox personalities like Bill O’Reilly don’t want to see taxes raised on the “rich”.

Except, uh…News Corp actually paid $4.8 billion in taxes.

Oof.

Never mind the fact that MSNBC’s parent company GE didn’t pay a dime in taxes in 2010. Nothing to see there, I guess.

Carter redux: The Barack Obama-Jimmy Carter Malaise Remix