[UPDATE] Cancer, Obamacare Victim at Center of Political Storm

Gary Peters (AP)

 Julie Boonstra, a cancer patient who was kicked of off her health plan due to Obamacare, lashed out at Rep. Gary Peters (D., Mich.) on Saturday after lawyers for his campaign demanded that Michigan broadcasters cease airing ads featuring her story.

Boonstra, a Michigan resident, was diagnosed with leukemia five years ago. She was recently kicked off of her healthcare plan due to regulations passed as part of President Barack Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which Peters voted in favor of.

After relating her story publicly in an ad produced by the advocacy group Americans for Prosperity (AFP), Peters dispatched lawyers to prevent the spot from running on local television stations.

Boonstra, who says she is now struggling to pay out of pocket for her rising healthcare costs, told the Washington Free Beacon she is stunned by Peters’ efforts to censor her story.

“I’m appalled. I’m appalled as a mom, as a woman, and as a cancer patient, as someone living with cancer … who has stood before this nation to say, ‘I cannot afford that out of pocket expense,’” said Boonstra, who said she was given a 20 percent chance of surviving her disease. “As a Michigan resident, to silence my voice, I’m absolutely appalled.”

Peters, who is running for a seat in the Senate, instructed his legal council earlier this week to demand that stations stop running the AFP ad until additional evidence of the cancer victim’s claims could be produced.

“For the sake of both FCC licensing requirements and the public interest, your station should immediately require AFP to provide the factual documentation for its claims if you are going to continue airing this advertising,” read the letter from Peters’ lawyers.

Via: WFB

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Michigan Democrat Rep. Gary Peters threatens TV station licenses over Obamacare ad

While Julie Boonstra of Dexter, Mich., struggles to survive leukemia, she now also has to cope with being called a liar by the Democrat who wants to be her next senator.

And the campaign of Rep. Gary Peters is also going after television stations airing ads in which her story is featured, threatening their licenses.

The ad by Americans for Prosperity features Boonstra talking about how her insurance was canceled under Obamacare and saying that Peters' decision to vote for the law "jeopardized my health." The ads are airing in Michigan as Peters seeks the Democratic nomination to replace Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., who is not seeking re-election.

Media organizations investigating the ad's claims note that Boonstra was able to find comparable new insurance under the law; the Washington Post's "Fact Checker" blog gave the ad "two Pinocchios" (as compared to four for President Obama's claim that people could keep their insurance under the law).

But Boonstra, in response, told the local Dexter Leader newspaper that though she has no idea whether she will break even with her new plan, as the fact-checkers claim, the uncertainty of having to restructure her health care while coping with a deadly disease is damage enough.

"People are asking me for the numbers and I don't know those answers -- that's the heartbreak of all of this. It's the uncertainty of not having those numbers that I have an issue with, because I always knew what I was paying and now I don't, and I haven't gone through the tests or seen my specialist yet," she said.

"People don't have that certainty -- they don't have the stability of knowing every month what they're going to be paying now and it's the ability to actually have that sum of money to pay. People don't have these out-of -pocket expense moneys."

Via: Washington Examiner

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