Stem Cells and Government Health Care

Obama’s been caught lying again.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama, seeking to make a case for health-insurance regulation, told a poignant story to a joint session of Congress last week. An Illinois man getting chemotherapy was dropped from his insurance plan when his insurer discovered an unreported gallstone the patient hadn’t known about.

“They delayed his treatment, and he died because of it,” the president said in the nationally televised address.

In fact, the man, Otto S. Raddatz, didn’t die because the insurance company rescinded his coverage once he became ill, an act known as recission. The efforts of his sister and the office of Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan got Mr. Raddatz’s policy reinstated within three weeks of his April 2005 rescission and secured a life-extending stem-cell transplant for him. Mr. Raddatz died this year, nearly four years after the insurance showdown.

But it’s even worse than that – Obama’s policies may be pushing people like this away from effective treatment.

In fact, the “essence of the story” is incredibly ironic. Raddatz had 3 years added to his life by ADULT stem cell treatment, the very research Obama rescinded funding for on March 24, 2009.

Obama in pushing for embryonic Stem Cell research effectively brushed aside Bush’s push for Adult Stem Cell research.