Vinehout Follow-Up Story

This story is interesting on so many levels.  The story is about the fact that Democratic Senator Kathleen Vinehout complained about not buying health insurance because of the expense, yet found $7,000 to loan to her campaign. 

The original story came out in the MJS on July 13th.  In that story, Vinehout’s decision was reported thus:

But in 2005, Alma dairy farmer Kathleen Vinehout and her husband, Doug Kane, faced a tough decision: Should they pay $900 to $1,000 a month for their own family health insurance or to cover their farm expenses?

They went without the insurance. “It was very scary,” Vinehout said.

On July 16th, Rick Esenberg posted the information on his blog that in the same period that she allegedly could not afford health insurance for her family, she managed to loan her senate campaign almost $8,000 (actually $7,959.21) and her husband loaned the campaign another $1,000.  This story made the rounds in the blogosphere and on talk radio.

Then… finally… yesterday we get a followup story from the MJS in which Vinehout is asked about her contributions.

First, it’s interesting that Steven Walters, the reporter for the MJS, failed to even acknowledge who originally broke the story about her political contributions.  He gives no credit whatsoever to Rick Esenberg.  That’s just rude.  Given that it took the MJS 13 days after the original story to follow it up (10 days after Esenberg’s post), they should have given credit where credit was due. 

Second, the followup story doesn’t even handle the issue well.  Read this:

Asked about the Nov. 1 loan to her campaign, Vinehout said in a statement that the $7,000 “came from a small inheritance from my mother,” who died in the spring of 2005.

The decision to go without health insurance was made “long before I decided to run for the Senate,” Vinehout said.

Notice the lack of follow-up by the reporter.  It was more than $7,000.  It was nearly $8,000.  Plus, what about the $1,000 from her husband?  Also, the $7,000 was from the spring of 2005, but it was loaned to her campaign in November of 2006?  She sat on it for 18 months and then loaned it to her campaign?  Why didn’t she use it for health insurance?  That could have bought a year’s worth of catastrophic insurance, which would have covered her kid’s emergency surgery. 

And then there’s this little snippet:

“We decided to drop the commercial insurance when the insurance company closed the plan, made it a high-risk pool and then started rapidly raising the premiums,” she said in the statement. “We were denied admission to their new ‘regular’ plan.”

“Anyone who has been without insurance knows how difficult it is to get insurance, once you’ve been without it,” Vinehout said.

Wait.  In the original story she said that the decision was “Should they pay $900 to $1,000 a month for their own family health insurance or to cover their farm expenses?” Now she is claiming that she was denied coverage from her plan.  Which is it?  And once again notice that the reporter apparently didn’t ask any follow-up questions about her contradictory statements. 

It seems clear that Vinehout will spin her personal stories whichever way is convenient to promote her agenda, and the MJS is going to do little more that take her statements at face value.