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Ad linking Romney to death of the wife of a laid off steelworker not accurate
cnn.com ^ | August. 7, 2012 | Brianna Keilar

Posted on 08/07/2012 7:22:26 PM PDT by Free ThinkerNY

A new attack ad by a Super PAC backing President Obama appears to blame Mitt Romney for a woman's death from cancer after his company, Bain Capital, shut down the steel mill where the woman's husband worked.

The ad makes it seem like Joe Soptic's wife, Ilyona, lost her battle with cancer shortly after he lost his job at GST Steel in Missouri, where he had worked for almost 30 years.

"When Mitt Romney closed the plant I lost my healthcare, and my family lost their healthcare," Soptic says in the ad put out by Priorities USA Action, the main pro-Obama super PAC. "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."

It's a very heart-wrenching story, but it’s not accurate. Here is the actual timeline:

Romney stopped his day-to-day oversight at Bain Capital in 1999 when he left to run the Salt Lake City Olympics, though he officially remained CEO until 2002. Bain Capital shut down GST Steel in 2001, costing Soptic his job.

According to Mr. Soptic, his wife received her primary insurance through her employer – a local thrift store called Savers – and retained it even after his layoff. Soptic's policy through GST Steel was her secondary coverage.

In 2002, Mitt Romney formally left Bain. Sometime in 2002 or 2003, Mr. Soptic says his wife injured her rotator cuff and was forced to leave her job. As a result she lost her health insurance coverage and Mr. Soptic's new job as a janitor did not provide coverage for his spouse.

It was a few years later, in 2006, that Ilyona Soptic went to the hospital with symptoms of pneumonia.

(Excerpt) Read more at whitehouse.blogs.cnn.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: agitprop; mediawingofthednc; obamalies; partisanmediashills; soptic
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1 posted on 08/07/2012 7:22:32 PM PDT by Free ThinkerNY
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To: Free ThinkerNY
Somebody in the Obama slaughterhouse didn't get the Spokeskid memo . . .

"Check your sources" (pp)

2 posted on 08/07/2012 7:28:22 PM PDT by atc23 (The Confederacy was the single greatest conservative resistance to federal authority ever.u)
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To: Free ThinkerNY

The lying ass Kenyan can say all he wants but everyone better hope they don’t get cancer once Barry’s CommieCare kicks in. You’re toast.


3 posted on 08/07/2012 7:31:20 PM PDT by FlingWingFlyer (The NRA did not create James "The Joker" Holmes. Harvey Weinstein's Hollywood did.)
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To: Free ThinkerNY

Sptic’s wife was accepted at the hospital so how can he claim that she didn’t have any place to turn to w/o his insurance?


4 posted on 08/07/2012 7:34:23 PM PDT by kitkat
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To: All


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5 posted on 08/07/2012 7:34:56 PM PDT by musicman (Until I see the REAL Long Form Vault BC, he's just "PRES__ENT" Obama = Without "ID")
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To: Free ThinkerNY

CNN debunked an Obama Ad?

Never thought I’d see the day.


6 posted on 08/07/2012 7:38:18 PM PDT by tsomer
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To: Free ThinkerNY

Very little that Obama or his minions ever say is accurate.


7 posted on 08/07/2012 7:40:01 PM PDT by jospehm20
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To: Free ThinkerNY

They know it is false when they say it. They do it because 90% of the mentally challenged progressives will remember it regardless if it is later proved false. That’s why they always try to mention the Tea Party in the same breath with any killing .... they know the mental moron will take it as fact.


8 posted on 08/07/2012 7:45:33 PM PDT by RetiredTexasVet (Skittle pooping unicorns are more common than progressives with honor & integrity.)
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To: tsomer
CNN debunked an Obama Ad?

Never thought I’d see the day.

Maybe it is still the Clinton News Network, doing Bill's bidding.

9 posted on 08/07/2012 7:46:02 PM PDT by SERKIT ("Blazing Saddles" explains it all.......)
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To: Free ThinkerNY

It was a hit job ad. All involved knew exactly the lie they were telling.


10 posted on 08/07/2012 7:49:47 PM PDT by Anti-Bubba182
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To: atc23

This story needs to be posted on Obama’s Facebook in the comment sections...

https://www.facebook.com/barackobama

(perhaps this will be the beginning of the end of his spokeman’s career for lagging behind the media)


11 posted on 08/07/2012 7:50:45 PM PDT by tsowellfan
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To: Free ThinkerNY

Plantation slave lies of mac daddies, worlds greatest pathological liar, administration.


12 posted on 08/07/2012 7:54:12 PM PDT by chiefqc
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To: Free ThinkerNY

Did she or her husband smoke?


13 posted on 08/07/2012 7:57:32 PM PDT by Blood of Tyrants (Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied.)
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To: Free ThinkerNY

It’s not like Democrats deal in truth. For them, the truth is a good lie, one they don’t get caught at, or one they can keep telling even when they are caught. I never expect any better from them, and that includes the garbage that comes out of the Obamamedia as news.


14 posted on 08/07/2012 8:03:59 PM PDT by pallis
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To: Anti-Bubba182

“...STATE RUN MEDIA IS REPORTING...”
“...STATE RUN MEDIA IS REPORTING...”
“...STATE RUN MEDIA IS REPORTING...”
“...STATE RUN MEDIA IS REPORTING...”
“...STATE RUN MEDIA IS REPORTING...”
“...STATE RUN MEDIA IS REPORTING...”
“...STATE RUN MEDIA IS REPORTING...”
“...STATE RUN MEDIA IS REPORTING...”


15 posted on 08/07/2012 8:16:47 PM PDT by maxsand (teapot)
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To: Free ThinkerNY

I spent 3 decades in Chicago. I know how Chicago politics works first hand. Obama is a Chicago politician. Nothing he does surprises me. Dirty politics is the Chicago way.


16 posted on 08/07/2012 8:22:31 PM PDT by entropy12 (Hate is the most insidious emotion, it will encourage cancer cells in your body.)
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To: Free ThinkerNY
There's more info on the whole story in this old Reuters article from January of this year.

My comments:

Joe Soptic worked at the plant for 28 years. That's 28 years of him coming home from the steel mill with asbestos on his clothes, for his wife (and kids?) to breathe those tiny, malignant particles into her lungs as she loaded his clothes into the washing machine. Week after week, for 28 years.

Rather than place blame for his wife's lung cancer death on Mitt Romney, who wasn't running Bain in 2001, and who was Governor of Taxachusetts in 2006, wouldn't it make almost as much sense to blame the husband who came home from work every day covered in practically invisible carcinogenic asbestos particles.

Also at the end of the article it mentions that he was left with $30,000 in medical bills from his wife's short, terminal illness. It says he cashed out a $12,000 savings account and the hospital wrote off the other $18,000.

What?!

This happened years before ObamaCare. I thought that the evil doctors and hospitals would either bankrupt you if you got sick, or they wouldn't even let you into the hospital if you couldn't pay. How can this story be true? The hospital wrote off more than half of the charges?

Another thing... in today's ObamaCare world, would Mr. Soptic be considered a "freeloader" by Obama, Pelosi and the Rats, since he didn't buy insurance?

I'm sorry the guy lost his job. I've been there. It sucks. I'm sorry his wife got sick and died. It's a terrible loss, I know.

But it is really tacky, trashy, sleazy, crooked... to try and place blame, for purely political reasons, on Romney.

17 posted on 08/07/2012 8:28:50 PM PDT by onemiddleamerican (FUBO and all your terrorist buddies)
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To: Blood of Tyrants

Exactly the question I was thinking - did either of them smoke? Just curious.

On another ad - if Mitt hasn’t paid his income tax in 10 years, how can Obama claim in an ad he is running in Ohio that Mitt paid only 14%?

We know both are lies because Reid and Obama are libs and they are incapable of telling the truth, but guys - can’t you at least get together and coordinate your lies? You Dems are looking dumber and dumber each day.


18 posted on 08/07/2012 8:30:16 PM PDT by SusaninOhio
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To: Free ThinkerNY

“Not accurate”:A gentle, Obama friendly media term for “a lie”.


19 posted on 08/07/2012 8:30:43 PM PDT by Carl LaFong (Vera the possum is US.)
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To: Free ThinkerNY
CNN.COM
I could not help but notice the source of this story. Maybe CNN is getting back in the news business.
Maybe I will give them a look. Fox News is no longer watchable and the only TVnews I am getting anymore is from Fox Business. That makes it hard since I am news junkie.
20 posted on 08/07/2012 8:33:28 PM PDT by Tupelo (TeaPartier ..... but no longer a Republican)
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