Priorities USA Action, which is led by former Obama aid Bill Burton, has been running an ad that has an ex-steel worker, Joe Soptic, claiming that Bain Capital closed the factory where he worked which caused him to lose his health insurance. This was done, according to Joe, so that the Bain partners could pocket billions of dollars.
He then goes on to say that because he had lost his insurance, his wife delayed seeking treatment for what turned out to be cancer. He said, “And a short time after that my wife became ill. I don’t know how long she was sick. And I think maybe she didn’t say anything because she knew we couldn’t afford the insurance.”
His wife died. And while tragic, her death had nothing to do with the plant closing. Joe should be ashamed of himself for using his wife’s death to falsely promote a cause. Worse than that is the fact that the Obama camp did not issue a public statement about the ad saying it was patently false and should be immediately removed from the airwaves.
Here are the facts about Joe, his wife’s insurance and death, and Romney’s/Bain’s involvement.
Bain bought GS Steel in 1993 for $75 million.
There were plans made to merge it with another steel company and take the company public, but market forces started throwing them curves.
In 1997 the company had its first labor strike in 40 years. It lasted 10 weeks and was pretty divisive.
Electricity and natural gas prices, both used in the production of steel, skyrocketed.
A flood of cheap imports drive prices down in the later 1990’s.
GS filed for bankruptcy in 2001. The KC plant where Joe worked was shut down and 750 people lost their jobs.
And yes, it was reported that Bain more than doubled their money on the deal by then.
Joe’s wife had health insurance for a year or two after that through her own employer.
She had no insurance later because a shoulder injury caused her to leave that job that provided coverage. That was the immediate reason for her being uninsured, not the plant closure.
Soptic said, "A short time after that (the closing of the plant), my wife became ill. The illness took place in 2006; some five years after Soptic lost his job.
And at the time of the plant closing, Romney was very involved in running the Olympics and probably had no direct involvement in this situation.
Jen Psaki, an Obama staff spokeswoman, said the Obama team had "no involvement with any ads that are done by Priorities USA. We don’t have any knowledge of the story of the family." This is interesting in light of the fact that the Obama campaign had featured Soptic in a previous ad and campaign officials had participated in a briefing with reporters where Soptic had talked about his wife.
It may surprise you that I do not blame Obama for this lack of moral compass in regards to the ads he uses. I blame us. We allow it. In fact, we revel in it. We do not want to listen to what is important to us and our collective future. That is hard, complex, and would make us uncomfortable. We would rather stand by like a group of children watching two kids fighting on the playground cheering and taunting them on. And so again we will have a choice this November between Lousy Option A and Lousy Option B.
I guess that is really what we all want.
(To see the ad, go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nj70XqOxptU&feature=player_embedded)
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