The case of Julie Boonstra, a leukemia patient who was featured in an Americans for Prosperity ad against Representative Gary Peters (D-MI) claiming she had lost her doctor and seen her premiums rise as a result of the Affordable Care Act, became controversial last month after politicians and reporters disputed the details of the ad, finding that Obamacare would actually improve her health coverage at lower cost.
Glenn Kessler, Washington Post’s fact checker, originally assigned the story ‘two Pinocchios’ (on a scale of four) pending further information about Boonstra’s plan (which he said AFP declined to give him). On Tuesday morning, he downgraded AFP’s ad to ’3 Pinocchios,’ arguing that much of Boonstra’s story had proven to be false, and that the group’s new ad, which merely says that Boonstra’s plan “isn’t right for me,” is a much fuzzier and “more subjective” claim.
Kessler noted that Boonstra’s new plan allowed her to retain her old doctor, and lowered her premiums by $1,200/year. It also covered all of her prescription medications and all of her out of pocket medical expenses on a bone marrow transplant, contrary to her worries on both.
“One cannot claim that a plan is ‘unaffordable’ when over the course of the year it will provide you with substantial savings,” Kessler wrote. “Thus we are changing the rating on this ad from Two Pinocchios to Three Pinocchios.”
