Steelworker In Obama Ad Who Blamed Romney For His Wife’s Death Was Offered A Buyout

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Written By:
Rob Port

Aug 8, 2012
11:41pm

By now most of you have undoubtedly seen this despicable ad run by the Obama campaign’s Super PAC division (I’m not going to pretend like the latter isn’t a fully owned subsidiary of the former) in which a union steelworker accuses Mitt Romney of causing his wife’s death from cancer. According to Mr. Soptic, he lost his job when Bain Capital took over his company and cut his health insurance.

Which is kind of unfair for all sorts of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that Romney left Bain in 1999. GST, Soptic’s employwer, was shut down in 2001. Soptic’s wife had her own health insurance through 2003. Soptic’s wife wasn’t diagnosed with cancer until 2006, and she died 22 days later.

Tragic? Absolutely. But is the argument here that Romney, through a company he no longer worked for, owed this guy seven years of health insurance after laying him off?

Now more details have come to light. It turns out Mr. Soptic was offered a buyout, and he didn’t take it.

I don’t think it’s fair to blame anyone for Mr. Soptic’s wife’s disease and death. Cancer is cruel, and it’s terrible that he had to lose his spouse. But to the extent that anyone can be blamed, it seems to me that the government regulations which have made health insurance and health care so affordable that people like the Soptics can’t afford them on their own are far more culpable than an executive who used to work for the company that took over Soptic’s employer once upon a time and then went on to a political career.

And by the way, Obamacare is making health insurance and health care even more expensive and difficult to access.