Apparently, it's all over the wingnut-o-sphere, but I didn't see anything about it around here.
Mind the discarded cheeto.
James O'Keefe, legendary liar of ACORN infamy, is back on the scene according to Addicting Info:
O’Keefe is back, just a few months later. Like before, he is baldly promoting videos designed to make ACA workers look bad. This time the video footage tries to make Obamacare (ACA) navigators look like they’re telling people to lie on their ACA forms. Fox news gladly ran with the story. In Texas, GOP reps are using the edited videos as a new excuse to demand an end to the Obamacare and the ACA navigator program. Four ACA workers, who were still in training at the time the video was made, have been either suspended or fired, due to O’Keefe’s latest media stunt.
And it looks bad -- in one video, O'Keefe's operative is told not to record the fact that he "smokes sometimes" on his health insurance application. In a second, trainees in the Navigator program recommend the applicant mis-report his income in order to lower his premium costs.
But, as always with this scumbag (again, AI):
O’Keefe refuses to release the raw footage.
The Urban League of Dallas (ULD) hires and trains the ACA workers, to work in that area of Texas. The ULD says that O’Keefe’s video footage is deceptively edited and that corrective statements were made at the time of the recording. The ULD says that those statements were selectively edited out of the videos. The ULD has asked that all of the raw footage be released. O’Keefe says he won’t turn over the raw video. He claims that the edits he made to his videos are no different from what filmmakers do all of the time.
One
very important detail I was able to find -- that the AI article leaves out, unfortunately -- is that the woman in the first video was merely a part-time receptionist.
from local NBC affiliate NBCDFW:
A statement from the Urban League of Greater Dallas stated the receptionist was not part of the Obamacare Navigator program and was not qualified to recommend anything. That woman has been fired by the group.
"The part-time receptionist trainee shown in the Irving office was not, nor had ever been, authorized to speak on behalf of The Urban League of Greater Dallas, or as a Navigator, and represented her personal opinion, not that of our organization. As such and as a result of our investigation thus far, her employment with The Urban League of Greater Dallas has been terminated," the group said.
[
bolding added]
In addition:
"In addition, we support actions by the Department of Health & Human Services to decertify the three Navigators-in-training featured in the video, and The Urban League of Greater Dallas has suspended these employees until further notice," a statement from the Urban League said.
The group also said they are continuing to train Navigators, but are not authorizing anyone in the group to act as one "at this point."
We need to see this raw footage, of course, but healthcare reform needed this little trumped-up imbroglio like a hole in the head.
9:02 AM PT: My first RecList. Thank you.