Is Obamacare Poster Boy Chad Henderson Lying?

As the media continue to laud Organizing for Action volunteer Chad Henderson‘s successful enrollment for Obamacare, Reason got in touch with the 21-year-old’s father. It turns out that young Henderson is not enrolled in Obamacare, and is getting his cost figures all wrong.

Henderson’s story was promoted as proof that the new health law can work for individuals. That was exactly how Chad intended it. He was a volunteer with President Obama’s campaign last year, and his LinkedIn page still lists him as an active volunteer with Organizing for Action, the former campaign organization which now advocates for the president’s legislative agenda.

He told The Washington Post that he was sharing his story because he wanted the new health law to succeed.

“I’ve read a few articles about how young people are very critical to the law’s success,” he said to The Post. “I really just wanted to do my part to help out with the entire process.”

But details of Chad’s story proved difficult to verify. And in a phone interview conducted this morning, Chad’s father Bill contradicted major details of Chad’s story. I reached Bill Henderson by following a series of links at Chad’s Facebook page, through which I was able to speak directly to the father.

Bill Henderson told me that both he and his son were interested in getting coverage, but that he had not enrolled in any plan yet, and to his knowledge, neither had his son. He also said that when they do enroll, getting the most coverage for the least money would be the goal, and that he expects that he and his son will get coverage under the same plan.

Bill told me that Chad had been looking into plans online. “He told me that there’s different plans. And we haven’t decided which plans to enroll in yet.”

I asked him whether he and his son had talked about going on separate plans, and he told me that, “We’ll probably go on the same plan, more than likely.”

Henderson told the Washington Post that he has enrolled and will pay $175/month for his bronze plan. That cost figure isn’t available in Tennessee, where Henderson lives. The bronze plan there costs $225.09 a month, according to Reason.

So far, the only things that add up in Henderson’s story are that he volunteered for OfA, is not telling the truth, and the mainstream media aren’t fact-checking him. Stories like that play out nearly every day.