by Tommy Christopher at Mediaite:
Former MSNBC host and Greedy Bastards authorDylan Ratigan made himself into a hero for conservative media with his tweet “thanking”President Obama for his new insurance premium of $600 /mo., but he’s getting precious little sympathy from anyone else. Lost in this cold, heartless bit of class warfare is the opportunity for liberals to help their fellow man save some cold hard coin, and to examine the real tradeoffs involved in health care reform.
On Thursday, Ratigan tweeted that “I bought a catastrophic health policy for $170/mo when I left MSNBC. Obamacare cancelled the policy. New rate $600/mo. Thnx Mr. President!”
He joins The Daily Beast‘s David Frum among the tiny subset of Obamacare premium increase horror stories that actually sort of pan out, if your idea of a horror story is an increase that either of these guys can make up by booking a single speaking engagement. Some people are horrified, some are not. From Wonkette‘s Rebecca Schoenkopf:
Git out yer pitchforks, socialist dictator Barack Obama is redistributin’ yer wealth by making former millionaire MSNBC personality Dylan Ratigan pay AN EXTRA FOUR THOUSAND DOLLARS A YEAR for health insurance, because the old one he bought — his $170 per month catastrophic “insurance” — done been canceled. (And who canceled it, according to Dylan Ratigan? OBAMACARE CANCELLED IT, case closed!)Will nobody think of the poor millionaires?Via NoMoreMisterNiceBlog, who really isn’t near as sympathetic as he should be:Oh yeah, I feel terrible for this guy, who walked away from a $1 million annual salary at MSNBC last year (that’s in addition to the money he made when he sold his Lower Manhattan loft last fall for $1.38 million). I’m sorry he has $4080 less a year to help fulfill his dream of being a successful hydroponics entrepreneur — though that last link does say he also sold his Porsche.
This is just the kind of attitude that is tearing this country apart. Whether you are as rich as, or not as rich as, a mofo, President Obama is sorry, and he will take care of you. In the meantime, though, maybe instead of cursing the darkness, we could help Dylan out. Aside from booking him a speaking gig at CPAC, maybe he could take a look at Covered California, the health care exchange in his state. Ratigan doesn’t say where he got his quote, but according to the website, an Orange County resident his age can get a Bronze plan for $380 a month, or a cool $2650 a year less than the rate he tweeted.
According to Covered California, that $600 a month could net a Platinum plan. Ratigan doesn’t go into detail about his old plan, except to repeatedly emphasize how very bare-bones it was. Surely, Ratigan would never knowingly try to compare a pre-Obamacare catastrophic plan with a Platinum plan. That would be dishonest.
Either way, though, Dylan Ratigan will end up paying more for health insurance than he did before, and for that, President Obama is sorry. So far, though, media coverage of Obamacare’s tradeoffs has been abysmal. If millions of Americans are getting health insurance that they couldn’t get before, and millions of others are getting better health insurance for less money, maybe millionaires paying $200 a month more for better insurance is a price worth paying. It’s the group in between those poles who have so far failed to turn up in the media.
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