Where is this magical 500$ insurance?

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Here is a great example of what is wrong with these ’shoot the messenger’ exercises…

 So there is a big brouhaha over the family Democrats used to illustrate the need for SCHIP.

The right wing started making all sorts of claims that there was more to this story that what was reported. Some claims might have merit: I did not evaluate everyone of these new facts. But unfortunately, some don’t.

Here is a good example. In her latest post, Michelle talks about a blogger that found insurance for less than 500$ a month:

The Frosts claim it would cost them more per month than their mortgage, reportedly $1,200 a month, to buy private insurance. But insurance bloggers quickly found available plans for a family of six with premiums as low as $452/month.

“That’s almost a third of the price quoted in the [Baltimore Sun] article,” wrote Bob Vineyard at InsureBlog. “Doesn’t anyone bother to check the facts?”

Here is the problem. Some other bloggers have been trying to find out where is this number coming from. You can read the comments at insureblog and see that some of us have a big problem for with regards to this number. Among other issues:

1. We can’t verify the details of this terrific plan
2. We don’t have exact data on the family so it’s hard to assess if the quote we are getting would be anywhere close to what the family would actually pay.

Don’t take me wrong. It’s not that no such plan exists, or that the family is necessarily saying the truth. It’s just that before posting on your blog that (emphasis mine):

$1200 per month for a family of 6 in Baltimore. Really? What are they smoking?

you need a little bit more facts. To claim, with so little proof or facts they are smoking something is a real leap.

And try this yourself: go to Carefirst, plug in the same numbers (21250 and 39 years old) and you will see that you get premiums around 800$, with this caveat:

The actual premium rate may be either 25% or 50% higher than above premium rates based on the Medical Underwriting results.

My point isn’t that the journalist did a perfect job. Maybe he should have verified this 1200$ claim. My point is that before asking what the family is smoking or quoting some number that some blogger found, a bit more due dilligence is greatly needed.

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Filed under Election 08, Health care, Michelle Malkin, Right wing