The US Senate race in Colorado is one of the most competitive and important races in the 2014 midterm elections. It is quite possible that this particular election holds the balance of power in the Senate. Currently, incumbent Democratic Senator Mark Udall is locked in an extremely tight battle with his GOP opponent, Rep. Cory Gardner. Just as it is with other swing state Senate races, conservative SuperPACs have poured millions of dollars into this election, hoping to use negative ads to influence voters to vote against Udall. And, just like with those other races, many of the ads are misleading or just downright dishonest.
This week, Karl Rove’s CrossroadsGPS began airing a new television ad attacking Udall and his support of the Affordable Care Act. In the ad, a woman named Richelle is featured. She states that she had to go back to work so the family could afford health insurance. Per the ad, her husband started his own business. Due to the fact that they were a single income family, she was forced to get a job due to both the individual mandate within the Affordable Care Act and because the ACA was making insurance premiums higher. Basically, her husband’s income was just not enough to pay for insurance. At the end of the ad, Richelle calls on Udall to vote to repeal Obamacare.
To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.
Below is the ad in its entirety via CrossroadsGPS’ YouTube channel:
As one would expect when considering the source of this ad, the actual truth is a whole different story. Eli Stokols of Fox 31 in Denver spoke with Richelle McKim, the woman in the ad, to see how honest she was in the commercial. He contacted her based on the fact that her LinkedIn profile didn’t really jibe with what she was saying in the ad. The truth is that she worked at home for her husband’s company from 2008 to 2010. In 2010, she went to work for a petroleum company. Since 2013, she has been employed by Noble Energy, who just so happens to be a big donor to Udall’s opponent.
The ad makes it appear that she only recently went back to work due to both her husband starting a new business and Obamacare raising the prices of insurance. The fact is, she has been back in the workforce since 2010. Also, her husband’s company has been around since at least 2008, before Barack Obama was even elected President and definitely before the ACA was drafted. On top of that, she admitted to Stokols that her going back to work had nothing to do with health insurance and more to do with financial decisions for the household.
“It wasn’t the Affordable Care Act. It was just a financial burden, having a single income for so long.”
McKim also revealed that her and her children had long had health insurance, but her husband went without. Apparently, their plan would have been extremely expensive if he were on it due to his high blood pressure. However, now that preexisting conditions are a thing of the past, her husband can be added to a health insurance plan without it being a huge burden. Of course, McKim doesn’t see it this way. She thinks it was a good thing that her husband had the freedom before to go without health coverage. In her opinion, it was better when health insurance was extremely expensive or even unobtainable for people with health conditions. She also thinks undocumented immigrants have more freedom in this country than people like her and her husband.
“He had no insurance and that was a very good thing for us. We were able to choose if we wanted health insurance or not…It’s alarming that when we have illegals here, they can still choose if they want health care, but we as citizens no longer have that choice.”
Even though the ad is entirely misleading and her story is nowhere near what was represented in the commercial, McKim is glad she did it. She thinks the message is all that matters.
“I think it captured the heart of my message, which is that entrepreneurship is a risk and when you’re imposing overreaching policies that mandate people have to buy things they can’t afford, it takes that away.”
This is extremely reminiscent of the Koch-funded Americans For Prosperity ad from February of this year that ran in Michigan. In that ad, a woman named Julie Boonstra claimed that her health insurance premiums had risen under the ACA and that she was going bankrupt due to the added costs. Boonstra, a cancer patient, said that her out-of-pocket expenses were extreme under the new provisions of the law. In the end, it was revealed that she not only had much lower premiums but any out-of-pocket expenses were capped. Therefore, she was still saving money overall on her health costs and receiving a far better health insurance plan that she had before.
It is telling when conservative political groups have to mislead and outright lie about the ACA in order to convince people that it isn’t good for them. Then again, this is Karl Rove and the Kochs we are talking about, What more should we expect?
Justin Baragona is the Managing Editor at Politicus Sports as well as Senior Editor at PoliticusUSA. He was a political writer for 411Mania.com before joining PoliticusUSA. Politically, Justin considers himself a liberal but also a realist and pragmatist. Currently, Justin lives in St. Louis, MO and is married. Besides writing, he also runs his own business after spending a number of years in the corporate world. You can follow Justin on Twitter either with his personal handle (@justinbaragona) or the Sports site’s (@PoliticusSports).
