Grading PolitiFact: Obama and the "biggest drivers of the federal deficit"

In which PolitiFact overlooks a forest on account of a tree.


Fact-checking the fact checkers


The issue:



Sometimes PolitiFact deals with the surface meaning of a statement. Sometimes PolitiFact deals with the underlying argument. Prepare to plunge beneath the surface of this statement like a ... hovercraft.


The fact checkers:

Angie Drobnic Holan: writer, researcher
Bill Adair: editor


Analysis:

Cutting to the chase, let's just assume that PolitiFact did a superb job of evaluating the surface claim. Yes, over the long term Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid serve as the biggest drivers of the deficit, but record deficit for the current year was driven by a number of other factors, notably TARP and the stimulus package.

What about the underlying argument? Writer Angie Drobnic Holan knew that there was an underlying argument:

During a town hall on health care, an audience member asked President Barack Obama about the cost of health care reform, and whether the government could afford to do it.

Obama's answer was a variation on the sales pitch, Can you afford not to?

Drobnic opened her piece with the above. She identified Obama's underlying argument. But the evaluation ("Mostly True") of Obama's statement completely ignores the underlying argument, even though PolitiFact sort of skewers it in an offhand sort of way:

So if Obama is right that Medicare and Medicaid are driving the deficit, then health care reform can fix the long-term deficit, right?

Wrong.

That was not exactly Obama's argument. But this is an excellent time to review what Obama actually said:

Q With the cost of health care, I'm pretty satisfied with my own plan -- it's not everything that it should be or could be -- but I am concerned that -- of the government taking over health care and, you know, Social Security isn't doing real well, at least that's what we're being told, and how can we know that the government is going to be able to handle the cost of health care? Isn't that going to tax me? Isn't it going to be taxing my benefits? Those kind of things.

THE PRESIDENT: Right. Well, look, I think it's a very legitimate question. I guess the first point I'd make is, if we don't do anything, costs are going to go out of control. Nobody disputes this. Medicare and Medicaid are the single biggest drivers of the federal deficit and the federal debt -- by a huge margin. And at the pace at which they're going up, if we don't do some of the things that we've talked about tonight -- changing how we pay for quality instead of quantity; making sure that we are investing in prevention -- all those game-changers that I discussed earlier -- if we don't do those things, Medicare and Medicaid are going to be broke and it will consume all of the federal budget. Every program that currently exists under the federal budget, except defense and entitlements, all that would be swept aside by the cost of health care if we do nothing.

So that's point number one. Point number two is that a lot of what we're talking about is reallocating existing health care dollars that are not being spent wisely. And almost everybody agrees that there is a lot of room for us to improve how we're spending existing health care dollars.

And point number three -- there is going to be a need, initially, for some additional revenue, and I talked about our suggestion, my administration's suggestion, the best way to do that -- capping itemized deductions for people making over $250,000 a year.

But I also believe that if we are doing this right and we're bending the curve on health care, then you, who keeps a private plan, will see reductions in your out-of-pocket costs over time, so that instead of your health care premiums going up three times your wages over the next decade, it may only go up by the amount that inflation goes up generally. And that's real money in your pocket. That's real savings that would offset any potential increases.

By the way, I suspect that Charlie and I -- again, 3 percent of the population -- we're the ones who would see our taxes go up a little bit to pay for that initial outlay.

(whitehouse.gov)

David Hattenfield asked the president whether he could expect higher costs, particularly via taxation, as a result of the proposed health care reform.

Obama's response is curious, to say the least. His acknowledgment of the role of Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid in the federal deficit merely establishes the legitimacy of Hattenfield's question. It literally does nothing to address it. Sure, we can suppose along with Drobnic that the president was saying that those programs are so expensive that we cannot afford to delay health care reform, but isn't that salesman's argument obviously specious? The proposed legislation would expand Medicaid and set up a public health care plan along the general lines of Medicare. Reducing medical costs in the private sector is a separate issue.

We could analyze additional portions of the president's statement, such as the claim that preventive care would produce substantial savings. The purpose here, however, is simply to evaluate PolitiFact's attempt at fact-checking.

Here again, we have a substantially true statement used to mislead. Obama took the very programs that produced Hattenfield's concern over the government's ability to effectively address the health care issue and, according to Drobnic, used those programs as the very justification for reform.

Obama's reward for snake-oil salesman tactics? "Mostly True."


The grades:

Angie Drobnic Holan: F
Bill Adair: F

It was maddening to see Drobnic flirt with addressing the underlying argument, then ignore it for purposes of the "Truth-O-Meter" rating.