Ad linking Romney to death of the wife of a laid off steelworker not accurate

The ad makes it seem like Joe Soptic’s wife, Ilyona Ranae Soptic, lost her battle with cancer shortly after he lost his job at GST Steel in Missouri, where he had worked for almost 30 years.

“When Mitt Romney closed the plant I lost my healthcare, and my family lost their healthcare,” Soptic says in the ad put out by Priorities USA Action, the main pro-Obama super PAC. “A short time after that, my wife became ill. I don’t know how long she was sick and I think maybe she didn’t say anything because she knew we couldn’t afford the insurance.”

It’s a very heart-wrenching story, but it’s not accurate. Here is the actual timeline:

Romney stopped his day-to-day oversight at Bain Capital in 1999 when he left to run the Salt Lake City Olympics, though he officially remained CEO until 2002. Bain Capital shut down GST Steel in 2001, costing Soptic his job.

According to Mr. Soptic, his wife received her primary insurance through her employer – a local thrift store called Savers – and retained it even after his layoff. Soptic’s policy through GST Steel was her secondary coverage.

In 2002, Mitt Romney formally left Bain. Sometime in 2002 or 2003, Mr. Soptic says his wife injured her rotator cuff and was forced to leave her job. As a result she lost her health insurance coverage and Mr. Soptic’s new job as a janitor did not provide coverage for his spouse.

It was a few years later, in 2006, that Ilyona Soptic went to the hospital with symptoms of pneumonia. She was diagnosed with stage four cancer and passed away just days later.