Ms. Boonstra should be ashamed of herself for playing ball with unethical people like the Koch Brothers and their AFP

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Lengel: A Local Woman's Shameful Effort to Defend False Anti-Obamacare Commercials
By Alan Lengel, March 13, 2014

In the latest effort to resurrect Julie Boonstra as the GOP's poster person for anti-Obamacare, Boonstra has written a long "letter"  in The Detroit News insisting that she's telling the truth. 

The letter, presented as a guest column,  surfaces three days after The Detroit News' Marisa Schultz reported that even though Boonstra called Obamacare "unaffordable” in her TV commercials, she was actually saving more than $1,000 a year.

Democratic politicians criticized her for being misleading in the ads. Conversely, some folks, including some readers of Deadline Detroit, thought it was unfair to criticize a cancer patient. I'm not convinced any disease gives people carte blanche to say whatever they want without challenge.

To fend off  the criticism and bolster her declining credibility,  Boonstra said in The News' column that, yes, Obamacare really is bad for her and that her TV commercials are accurate.

Her argument is not convincing.

She writes:

Five years ago, I was diagnosed with leukemia. The first thing I did was find a health plan that fit my needs — a “Cadillac” plan because that covered 100 percent of my expensive treatments. While the plan was expensive, it allowed me to focus on my health and to see the specialists and doctors that I needed. Most of all, it gave me peace of mind. 

Obamacare canceled my plan. Last October, I received a cancelation letter. I was being denied my insurance choice because my plan didn’t comply with Obamacare. I was shocked. Like the rest of the country, I’d heard the president promise, “if you like your health care plan, you can keep it.”

Yes, Obama screwed up with Obamacare. It was disorganized. Yes, he falsely promised people could keep their insurance if they preferred.  The website was a disaster. And yes, some of the plan still needs to be improved. But her whole argument has been that Obamacare has made her coverage unaffordable. And that, according to the Detroit News article, is simply false.

The News writes:

Boonstra’s old plan cost $1,100 a month in premiums or $13,200 a year, she previously told The News. That didn’t include money she spent on co-pays, prescription drugs and other out-of-pocket expenses. 

By contrast, the Blues’ plan premium costs $571 a month or $6,852 for the year. Since out-of-pocket costs are capped at $5,100 for in-network doctors and hospitals, including deductibles, the maximum Boonstra would pay this year for all of her cancer treatment is $11,952

It really comes down to this: Boonstra is a shameless shill for the GOP right. In her column she writes:  "I have reached out to Congressman Gary Peters for help since he is running for a Senate seat for Michigan." She writes that he hasn't helped.

Please.

She lives in Dexter. Her Congressman is Rep. Tim Walhberg, a Republican, not Peters. If she prefers to deal with  influential Democrats on the Hill, she could have called Michigan's  U.S. Senators, Carl Levin or Debbie Stabenow. But wait, the senators aren't running for office. Peters is.

I'm going out on the limb here to say that, at least from outward appearances, it looks as if the group, Americans for Prosperity, which has run her commercials and is backed by the obnoxious Koch brothers, is using her to try and sink Peters in the Senate campaign with some good old-fashioned anti-Obamacare rhetoric.

Boonstra writes in her column about all the angst she went through trying to get coverage after her policy was canceled. And for that, the Obama administration owes an apology to her, and the many others in the U.S. That was a shame.

But then she goes on to write that she got a plan that "came closest to my discontinued plan. I focused on my specialist and my medications. The premiums were cut in half, but much of those savings were offset by an increased out-of-pocket limit."

"Now, I am not sure if I’ll be able to afford the month-to-month cost spikes that could accompany plans like this."

Notice she says "could" accompany plans like this.

So far, there's no proof of the "could." And The Detroit News article says differently.

Boonstra complains in her column about Sen. Harry Reid calling her a liar.

Well, Ms. Boonstra. Welcome to dirty Washington politics and its fallout.

You should be ashamed of yourself for playing ball with unethical people who care far less about you and far more about seizing power and having people carry out their agenda.

And the GOP should be ashamed for using a cancer patient as a political tool. 

Read the column.
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