The Texas Horror Story: In late November Yamil Berard at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram wrote a piece on Obamacare's losers, people whose plans had been cancelled and who were having a hard time finding new plans. Whitney Johnson, a 26-year-old with multiple sclerosis, claimed she was being quoted $1,000 a month for her new premium. Robert Kecseg, 61, said his deductible was "double" the $10,000 he paid previously. Shari Lusk, 57, refused a subsidy.

Mahar found that Johnson, Kecseg and Lusk are all active Tea Party members. Meanwhile, it's extremely unlikely for a 26-year-old to pay $1,000 monthly premium, and anyone following the health care law would know that it limits deductibles for families at $12,700 and $6,350 for individuals. Unfortunately, Berard hadn't been following the Obamacare news. “I haven’t written about healthcare in a long time. We don’t have a healthcare writer," she told Mahar. "I cover about 15 other topics."

The Lesson: Google your sources, or someone else will do it for you. Also, someone who thinks "We as a nation need to stand with the likes of Senator Ted Cruz and Senator Mike Lee who are committed to stopping ObamaCare,” as Johnson wrote in a letter to a pro-life organization, probably has a bias against Obamacare that should be mentioned.

The Los Angeles Horror Story: In October, Deborah Cavallaro of Los Angeles was quoted $478 a month by her insurance broker, nearly $200 more than her current plan. "Please explain to me," she told Maria Bartiromo on CNBC Wednesday, "how my plan is a 'substandard' plan when ... I'd be paying more for the exchange plans than I am currently paying by a wide margin?" She also said, "for the first time in my whole life, I will be without insurance." But, as Michael Hiltzik at the Los Angeles Times found, her current plan kind of sucks:

Her current plan, from Anthem Blue Cross, is a catastrophic coverage plan for which she pays $293 a month as an individual policyholder. It requires her to pay a deductible of $5,000 a year and limits her out-of-pocket costs to $8,500 a year. Her plan also limits her to two doctor visits a year, for which she shoulders a copay of $40 each. After that, she pays the whole cost of subsequent visits.

A silver plan with a $2,000 deductible would cost her $333 a month after the subsidy that the Times confirmed she was eligible for. Cavallaro, 60, also worried that her income would fluctuate, reducing her subsidy, and that her network would shrink.

See also: 56-year-old Dianne Barrette, whose $54 a month plan hardly covered anything.

The Lesson: No one benefits when journalists don't dig deeper. CNBC failed to explain to Cavallaro why her plan was substandard — the super low cap on doctors visits, the high out-of-pocket costs (now capped at $6,350 for individuals) — so someone else had to. The network also didn't dig deeper to see if she had better options. Maybe telling people they're screwed gets more viewers.