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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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To: kitkat

Soptic claimed in the ad that due to the high cost of care without insurance, his wife had likely concealed the symptoms since she felt that they couldn’t afford treatment.


21 posted on 08/07/2012 8:35:21 PM PDT by JerseyanExile
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To: Free ThinkerNY

Sorry for your loss Mr. Soptic, that said you are nothing but a stooge and a tool. How much did they pay you?

CNN must have really hated doing this story.


22 posted on 08/07/2012 8:49:12 PM PDT by Mike Darancette (Obamaid has to go.)
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To: Blood of Tyrants; SusaninOhio
Working in a mill, dealing with hot molten metal, back then the workers used long asbestos gloves, "aprons" and maybe even asbestos coveralls... I don't know enough about the job back then. I was a kid when my uncle worked in a mill in P'burgh, so I don't remember.

But Soptic coming home from work every day, he could very well have brought asbestos particles into his own home on his clothing.

I wonder if Joe Soptic got any kind of compensation for his wife's lung cancer from the big asbestos class action suit... I had a cousin who was a carpenter who died from mesothelioma when he was only 41.

23 posted on 08/07/2012 8:50:41 PM PDT by onemiddleamerican (FUBO and all your terrorist buddies)
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To: Free ThinkerNY

The Ministry of Propaganda is not interested in accuracy, it is interested exclusively in swaying the minds (such as they are) of the proles.


24 posted on 08/07/2012 9:00:16 PM PDT by Jack Hammer
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To: Anti-Bubba182

Dewhurst in Texas pulled the same crap on Cruz in the 2 weeks leading to the runoff. He had an ad with a woman blaming Cruz for the death of her son that committed suicide. People were disgusted ——didn’t turn out so well for Dewhurst. Liberals think we are so stupid. Any normal person would have gone out and taken care of getting some sort of health insurance if you are laid off. It’s called personal responsibility.


25 posted on 08/07/2012 9:28:02 PM PDT by dandiegirl
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To: JerseyanExile

It was his personal responsibility to find insurance he could afford. BO care would have just fined/taxed him because he had no health insurance on top of everything else.


26 posted on 08/07/2012 9:31:56 PM PDT by dandiegirl
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To: Tupelo
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.
Recovery from news junkie hood is possible; I am proof.
My daughter was stunned to learn that I used to listen to “all news radio” back in the day. She was surprised, because she knew that as long as she was aware, I have always treated news pretty much like an advertisement for something I wouldn’t take if you gave it to me.
Which is what the news is - an advertisement for Socialism.
Journalism and Objectivity

27 posted on 08/07/2012 10:03:49 PM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion (The idea around which “liberalism" coheres is that NOTHING actually matters except PR.)
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To: Free ThinkerNY

I am sad he lost his wife but this is absurd. How about thanking Mitt for taking over the plant in the 1990’s so that the guy could keep his job a little longer than he would have otherwise. Clearly the guy was not very skilled - he could not find decent work over the course of many years after the plant was shut down. It seems that Romney did him some charity by keeping him at the plant for as long as it could.

Anyway this kind of attack ad is so low and despicable the Obama campaign must be running scared. It signals that it will be a low down and dirty election, which is bad for all of us, but I hope some of it blows back on Obama. He ran on hope and change 4 years ago and now runs on the stench of death and fear. Sad.


28 posted on 08/08/2012 12:09:33 AM PDT by monkeyshine
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To: Free ThinkerNY
The whole thing is such a pathetic swipe it's difficult to conceivably deal with the accusation as if it had an ounce of credibility.

To me it simply stunk of NAZI tactics that the obama collective employs daily. I'll not have anything to do with it. Anyone who does in presence will get a full load of my opinion for being a "collaborator".

29 posted on 08/08/2012 5:09:40 AM PDT by Caipirabob (I say we take off and Newt the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure...)
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