Wednesday, December 29, 2010

PolitiFact's "Lie of the Year" readers' poll

Does PolitiFact's year-end readers' poll tell us anything about PolitiFact?

At the very least, the poll gives us a clue about the demographic breakdown of the PolitiFact audience.  No, it's not scientific because it's a self-selecting poll group rather than a randomly selected one.  But, in a sense, that gives us an even better picture of the PolitiFact operation since PolitiFact actively solicits input from its readers as to what stories to cover.  And the willingness (eagerness) to be counted in a poll will help measure the most active group of readers.  I did not vote in the poll, for what that's worth.

ObamaCare is a "government takeover" of health care        43.9
$200 million a day for a trip to India                                   19.2
No private sector job creation from Stimulus                      13.9
Dem plan raises taxes for 94 percent of small businesses      8.8
Ethics report exonerates Charlie Rangel                               6.7
"Taliban Dan" Webster and wifely submission                      2.6    
Phoenix No. 2 for kidnappings                                            1.8
Other                                                                                 1.6
GOP privatize Social Security                                             1.5                   

The breakdown assumes that voting for a "lie" that implicates the other party serves as a useful indication of the party favored by the voter.

The totals are a bit stunning.  The total vote from the ideological right, with "Other" thrown in, comes to about 12 percent (12.4).

Three individual "Lie of the Year" candidates received more votes than came from the presumed Republican bloc.

The total vote from the ideological left:  88 percent (87.6).

There's your audience, PolitiFact.  You want them directing your coverage?




Note:  Published originally with 11 percent vs. 89 percent because final item was miscategorized--fixed that within a few minutes of publishing.
                                                                  

Grading PolitiFact (Virginia): Bobby Scott and the cost of tax compromise

The issue:




The fact checkers:

Wes Hester:  writer, researcher
Warren Fiske:  editor


Analysis:

The context of Rep. Robert C. "Bobby" Scott's (D-Va.) statement:

“This bill adds more than $800 billion to the deficit over two-years – more than the cost of TARP and more than the cost of the Recovery Act.   It costs about the same over two years as the 10 year cost of the Health Care Reform bill, which we paid for."

(...)

“We cannot add more than $800 billion to the deficit through tax cuts and tell the American people with a straight face that they won’t have to sacrifice anything in the future to balance the federal budget.  If we didn’t have the political will to end the Bush-era tax cuts tonight, we certainly won’t have the political will to do it two years from now during a presidential election.”
I included the latter paragraph to help make clear what Scott was trying to communicate.  He is saying that extending all of the tax cuts adds more than $800 billion to the deficit.  Note that PolitiFact does not frame the issue the same way:  "Rep. Bobby Scott says the tax deal costs the same as health care reform, exceeds price of Stimulus and TARP."

Tax cuts, tax deal.  The difference is significant, as we shall see.

Thursday, December 23, 2010

The needle and the damage done

I needle PolitiFact often about its biased attempts at fact checking.  And though I did not predict it as such, it comes as no surprise that PolitiFact's "Lie of the Year" story is doing considerable damage to their pretense of objectivity.

Let's face it:  Picking a "Lie of the Year" is not an objective activity in the first place, as I noted last year when PolitiFact first instituted the custom.  Picking a "Lie of the Year" is going to take subjective judgment at some level. This year's pick is steeped in subjective judgment perhaps even more than last year's.

I'll have more on PolitiFact's destruction of its reputation when I publish my review of PolitiFact for 2010.

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Piquing PolitiFact: "Nuclear option" isn't really accurate, is it?

In the wake of PolitiFact's English language power grab (see Lie of the Year), a suitable analogy occurred to me.  And I couldn't resist employing it at a discussion area (thread:  "Fact Check This!") at PolitiFact's FaceBook page:

Byron York gets it: PolitiFact doesn't get it

Byron York of the Washington Examiner slaps PolitiFact with one of the same criticisms brought to bear earlier by Karl of Hot Air's Green Room and yours truly:
The group recently cited as "Lie of the Year" the charge that Obamacare represents "a government takeover of health care." Writes PolitiFact: "As Republicans smelled serious opportunity in the midterm elections, they didn't let facts get in the way of a great punchline."

PolitiFact says the charge is false because it "conjures a European approach where the government owns the hospitals and the doctors are public employees." But that's not even true in much of Europe. And imposing draconian new regulations on the health care industry, creating "exchanges" that tightly control the sale of health coverage, fining people who don't purchase coverage, and dictating to insurance companies what they may and may not charge -- if that's not a government takeover of health care, it's certainly in the ballpark.
Bingo.

Oh, wait.  What am I saying?

By any reasonable definition, there's no way that the Democratic plan could be considered a government takeover.

Therefore (logically), Byron York and others of his ilk are unreasonable.

Or something like that.

Monday, December 20, 2010

Message received, partly ignored

For the "Piquing PolitiFact" category, I'm reproducing a message I sent to PolitiFacter Angie Drobnic Holan regarding the Howard Dean interview published at PolitiFact:
Dear Angie Drobnic Holan,

I've written a number of times to the effect that it would be nice if PolitiFact would publish its interview material in order to provide a more transparent background for the quotations used in its stories.  For that reason, I was pleased to see the interview with Howard Dean appear on PolitiFact's (Web) pages.

On the other hand, the Dean interview was just one interview.  Why publish that one selectively?  What reasons contributed to that decision, please?

Cheers,
Bryan White
http://subloviate.blogspot.com/



P.S. Dean is not a stupid man, so it can't be assumed for purposes of transcribing an oral interview that he does not know the difference between "you're" and "your" ("First of all, you don't play defense when your doing messaging, you play offense," for example).  But maybe Dean wrote out his comments, for all I know.

P.P.S.:  The PolitiFact story has at least one obvious and unambiguous error in it:

"The memo is about salesmanship, not substance. It doesn't address whether the lines are accurate."

Actually, the memo does address the accuracy of the lines, at least for the line in question:  "Nothing else turns people against the government takeover of healthcare (more) than the realistic expectation that it will result in delayed and potentially even denied treatment, procedures and/or medications.")

Luntz's mention of the "realistic" expectation of denied/delayed care is a judgment about the accuracy of the message Luntz is trying to help Republicans convey.

The wording used in the story creates the (false) impression that Luntz was unconcerned about whether the messaging conveyed an accurate message.  Quite ironic given the thrust of your story.

Of course it's possible to read the line charitably on your behalf and take it to mean that Luntz's emphasis in the memo wasn't the accuracy of the claims but rather the efficacy of the messaging.  On the other hand, I assume that you don't mind being held to the same standard to which you hold others. (pants on fire!  ;-)  )
(yellow highlights added)

Yes, there's a secret message at the end reproduced faithfully from the original.

But the point is that the Dean quotation has been altered since I sent the message:
"The Democrats are atrocious at messaging. They've gotten worse since I left, not better. It's just appalling. First of all, you don't play defense when you're doing messaging, you play offense. The Republicans have learned this well. We did a lot of great things when I was at the (Democratic National Committee) in terms of infrastructure but we never could get people to actually message better. You always play offense when you're messaging, and the Republicans do it and we don't. You don't defend (against a charge that it's) a government takeover, you just say, 'Well, that's ridiculous.'"
Is it certain that Drobnic edited the Dean interview in response to my missive?  No, of course not.  But it's fairly likely.

Almost needless to say, the careless language about Luntz remains intact as of this posting.

Sunday, December 19, 2010

White House blog on PolitiFact's "Lie of the Year": We told you so!

The White House was quick to weigh in on PolitiFact's choice as "Lie of the Year" for 2010:
As we’ve worked to implement the Affordable Care Act and give the American people the security of knowing that their health care will be there when they need it most, opponents of reform haven't been shy about making claims that are at odds with the facts. But one piece of misinformation always stood out: the bogus claim that health reform amounts to a government takeover of health care.  Today, Politifact, a respected nonpartisan watchdog, said that this claim is the “Lie of the Year.”
PolitiFact is nonpartisan in approximately the same sense that the Brookings Institution and the Heritage Foundation are nonpartisan.  As for "respected," I guess it depends on whom you ask.
So, as we’ve been saying all along, the Affordable Care Act brings unprecedented transparency, consumer protections, and benefits that empower Americans to have better control over their health care decisions--bearing no resemblance with “a government takeover” of our health care system.
I'm surprised that White House mouthpiece Stephanie Cutter stopped short of reminding us that if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor.

Saturday, December 18, 2010

PolitiFact's "Lie of the Year" for 2010 another study in irony (Updated)

PolitiFact, with some self-produced fanfare, announced its "Lie of the Year" for 2010.

Like the supposed "Lie of the Year" for 2009 (Sarah Palin's "death panel" remark), PolitiFact's choice itself represents a case study in disinformation.

The winner?  The oft-repeated word choice of Republicans in labeling Obama's health care reform as a "government takeover" of health care.

On to PolitiFact's reasoning:
In the spring of 2009, a Republican strategist settled on a brilliant and powerful attack line for President Barack Obama's ambitious plan to overhaul America's health insurance system. Frank Luntz, a consultant famous for his phraseology, urged GOP leaders to call it a "government takeover."

"Takeovers are like coups," Luntz wrote in a 28-page memo. "They both lead to dictators and a loss of freedom."
It's worth examining the context in this case, because Luntz made many recommendations in the memo:
“Washington Takeover” beats “Washington Control.” Takeovers are like coups – they both lead to dictators and a loss of freedom. What Americans fear most is that Washington politicians will dictate what kind of care they can receive.
The recommendation occurred at the end of a set of three bullet points where Luntz advised Republicans to use the most effective words in making the case against the Democrats' health care reform plans.

PolitiFact:
The line stuck. By the time the health care bill was headed toward passage in early 2010, Obama and congressional Democrats had sanded down their program, dropping the "public option" concept that was derided as too much government intrusion. The law passed in March, with new regulations, but no government-run plan.
Apparently it is PolitiFact's opinion that Luntz's line was responsible for sinking the public option concept.  Except that it was the failure of Democratic solidarity that caused the exclusion of the public option.  Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Del.), for example, opposed it.  Was Lieberman snookered by the "government takeover" language?  That's very doubtful.  PolitiFact makes its case without backing evidence, which helps mark the story as opinion-drenched news analysis.  PolitiFact has no fact-based case for the importance of its chosen "Lie of the Year."

PolitiFact again:
But as Republicans smelled serious opportunity in the midterm elections, they didn't let facts get in the way of a great punchline. And few in the press challenged their frequent assertion that under Obama, the government was going to take over the health care industry.
Speaking of not letting the facts get in the way, what are the facts that justify claiming that the facts didn't get in the way?

PolitiFact:
PolitiFact editors and reporters have chosen "government takeover of health care" as the 2010 Lie of the Year. Uttered by dozens of politicians and pundits, it played an important role in shaping public opinion about the health care plan and was a significant factor in the Democrats' shellacking in the November elections.
If dissatisfaction with the health care plan was such a big factor in the November elections then perhaps PolitiFact could have found a "Lie of the Year" in a claim that Democrats would be able to run on the passage of health care reform and/or keep control of the House of Representatives.  But I digress.  We return to PolitiFact's reams of evidence that Luntz's characterization is false:
By selecting "government takeover' as Lie of the Year, PolitiFact is not making a judgment on whether the health care law is good policy.

The phrase is simply not true.

Said Jonathan Oberlander, a professor of health policy at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill:  "The label 'government takeover" has no basis in reality, but instead reflects a political dynamic where conservatives label any increase in government authority in health care as a 'takeover.' "
Hmmm.  Could this be the same Jonathan Oberlander who wrote an advocacy piece in favor of the Democratic health care reform bill, published in the New England Journal of Medicine back in March?

The possible taint on Oberlander's objectivity aside, is it true that "government takeover" has no basis in reality?  Oberlander's own words suggest that he contradicts himself.  Does the legislation provide for increased government authority as he appears to grant?  And isn't an increase in government authority a takeover of that realm of authority, given that the authority came into existence with the passage of the legislation?  Oberlander appears to simultaneously affirm and deny that the terminology has a basis in reality.

PolitiFact sets aside a section under the heading "An inaccurate claim," which suggests evidence will follow.
"Government takeover" conjures a European approach where the government owns the hospitals and the doctors are public employees. But the law Congress passed, parts of which have already gone into effect, relies largely on the free market:
To the politically aware, "Government takeover" should equally suggest an approach where the government exerts overpowering control over health care via regulation.  Comprehensive regulation makes formal ownership unnecessary.  Odd that the fact escapes PolitiFact's notice?

The list of evidences:
Employers will continue to provide health insurance to the majority of Americans through private insurance companies.

• Contrary to the claim, more people will get private health coverage. The law sets up "exchanges" where private insurers will compete to provide coverage to people who don't have it.

• The government will not seize control of hospitals or nationalize doctors.

• The law does not include the public option, a government-run insurance plan that would have competed with private insurers.

• The law gives tax credits to people who have difficulty affording insurance, so they can buy their coverage from private providers on the exchange. But here too, the approach relies on a free market with regulations, not socialized medicine.
Addressing the bullet points in order:

1)  Private insurance will come under greater government control through the new legislation, and it is fair to call newly instituted regulatory powers as a taking.

2)  "Contrary to the claim"--contrary to what claim?  Apparently PolitiFact is hard at work stomping the straw man of socialized medicine.  As noted above, sufficient government regulation renders ownership superfluous as a means of government control.  All insurance could be provided privately yet at the same time fall under strict government regulation.  There's no necessary contradiction.

3)  The bill does give the federal government increased control over doctors and hospitals.  Seizure and nationalization are not the issues unless we're only interested in the socialized medicine straw man.
The majority of physicians (60%) said health reform will compel them to close or significantly restrict their practices to certain categories of patients. Of these, 93% said they will close or significantly restrict their practices to Medicaid patients, while 87% said they would close or significantly restrict their practices to Medicare patients.
(The Physicians Foundation 2010 survey)

(P)roviders for whom Medicare constitutes a substantive portion of their business could find it difficult to remain profitable and, absent legislative intervention, might end their participation in the program (possibly jeopardizing access to care for beneficiaries).
(Estimated Financial Effects of the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,” as Amended)

4)  The lack of a "public option" is irrelevant.  As noted above, sufficient regulatory control of private insurance makes the creation of acquisition of a government-owned entity superfluous to government control of the industry.

5)  Methods of payment are irrelevant in excusing the increase in government control, especially when the example actually shows an increase in government control of the methods of payment.  The example accomplishes the opposite of its apparent intent.

Note that the list of evidences completely fails to eliminate the basis in truth for the claim that the government will take over health care:  The government does, in fact, take a substantially more significant role in regulating health care.  Any damage to the socialized medicine straw man remains beside the point.

Having run through its impotent supporting evidences, PolitiFact turned to other journalistic authorities for help within a section titled "'Can't do it in four words.'"
Other news organizations have also said the claim is false.

Slate said "the proposed health care reform does not take over the system in any sense.'
Daniel Gross' Slate commentary shares PolitiFact's blind spot for the role of regulation in conferring effective control of a business sector.  Gross also resembles Oberlander in that his comments result in apparent self-contradiction as he goes on to state that the government increased its control of health care simply on the basis of an increased share of health care costs borne by the government.
In a New York Times economics blog, Princeton University professor Uwe Reinhardt, an expert in health care economics, said, "Yes, there would be a substantial government-mandated reorganization of this relatively small corner of the private health insurance market (that serves people who have been buying individual policies). But that hardly constitutes a government takeover of American health care."
Reinhardt overlooks the new requirements for all health insurance policies, such as the elimination of insurance companies' ability to limit their risk by refusing coverage of pre-existing conditions.  There are many such requirements that are not relegated to individual policy market.  The claim that increased government control does not constitute a government takeover amounts to Reinhardt's opinion.
FactCheck.org, an independent fact-checking group run by the University of Pennsylvania, has debunked it several times, calling it one of the "whoppers" about health care and saying the reform plan is neither "government-run" nor a "government takeover."
FactCheck.org has a deserved reputation as the best of the lot when it comes to fact checking political statements, so this appeal to authority does carry some weight at first blush.  Unfortunately, FactCheck.org makes an error similar to PolitiFact's by assuming that "government-run" means a single-payer system like the systems in Canada or the United Kingdom.  There's nothing to prevent a government takeover from utilizing multiple payers.  Each story cited from FactCheck.org commits that type of error.

And about that "four words" bit:
"If you're going to tell the truth about something as complicated as health care and health care reform, you probably need at least four sentences," said Maggie Mahar, author of Money-Driven Medicine: The Real Reason Health Care Costs So Much. "You can"t do it in four words."

Mahar said the GOP simplification distorted the truth about the plan. "Doctors will not be working for the government. Hospitals will not be owned by the government," she said. "That's what a government takeover of health care would mean, and that's not at all what we"re doing."
With all due respect to the progressive Century Foundation's Mahar, government ownership is not required for government control, and four words can contain substantial truth about a complicated subject even if they cannot encapsulate the entirety.

PolitiFact's subsequent section, "How the line was used," does little to contribute to the fact checking process other than to provide evidence counter to PolitiFact's conclusion.  The last paragraph from the section:
In rare cases when the point was questioned, the GOP leader would recite various regulations found in the bill and insist that they constituted a takeover. But such followups were rare.
It doesn't make much sense to blame the GOP for the failure of journalists to ask followup questions.  But it does make sense to credit with truthfulness (to at least some degree) those GOP figures who explained exactly what they meant by "government takeover" by citing specifics from the bill.  Particularly in those cases it makes little sense to charge that Republicans were working to mislead people into thinking that the reform bill instituted a single-payer system or socialized medicine.  Yet PolitiFact misleads its readers toward that very conclusion.

The next section of the story carries the heading "An effective phrase" and treats Luntz's communications strategy:
The memo begins with "The 10 Rules for Stopping the 'Washington Takeover' of Healthcare.”  Rule No. 4 says people "are deathly afraid that a government takeover will lower their quality of care – so they are extremely receptive to the anti-Washington approach. It's not an economic issue. It's a bureaucratic issue."

The memo is about salesmanship, not substance. It doesn't address whether the lines are accurate. It just says they are effective and that Republicans should use them. Indeed, facing a Democratic plan that actually relied on the free market to try to bring down costs, Luntz recommended sidestepping that inconvenient fact:

"The arguments against the Democrats' healthcare plan must center around politicians, bureaucrats and Washington ... not the free market, tax incentives or competition."
"It doesn't address whether the lines are accurate."  Actually, it does:
Nothing else turns people against the government takeover of healthcare than the realistic expectation that it will result in delayed and potentially even denied treatment, procedures and/or medications.
Where Luntz refers to the "realistic expectation" about denied or delayed health care treatment he is asserting that the point his language recommendations try to effectively communicate is a legitimate (accurate) concern.

Aside from the above PolitiFact-crafted lie, the section also features DNC Chairman Howard Dean making a statement that appears to contradict Mahar's claim from the preceding section:
Dean grudgingly admires the Republican wordsmith. "Frank Luntz has it right, he just works for the wrong side. You give very simple catch phrases that encapsulate the philosophy of the bill."
Dean's statement appears to leave ample room for four words to carry significant truth ("encapsulate the philosophy") about a complex subject.  PolitiFact fails to note the discrepancy.

PolitiFact's tone-deaf approach holds true through the last section, "A responsive chord."
By March of this year, when Obama signed the bill into law, 53 percent of respondents in a Bloomberg poll said they agreed that "the current proposal to overhaul health care amounts to a government takeover.”
If PolitiFact's analysis is accurate, then doesn't that mean that 53 percent of respondents came to believe that the health care reform bill represents socialized medicine or a single-payer plan?  The PolitiFact story emphasized again and again that "government takeover" can only mean that type of thing.

Probably no survey data will ever surface to support anything approaching a 53 percent belief that the 2010 health care reform instituted a single-payer system or socialized medicine.  And it should have occurred to PolitiFact to view the Bloomberg poll as a potential refudiation of its operating assumption.  I would expect survey data to show that "government takeover" ended up communicating the Republican position that the health care reform bill placed too much control of the health care market in the hands of the federal government.

PolitiFact failed to ask the obvious followup question regarding the poll results.


Summary:

As with the 2009 "Lie of the Year," the cure is worse than the disease.

PolitiFact created the fantasy that "government takeover" can only mean socialized medicine or a single-payer plan.  Though that is a ridiculous notion, it occurs repeatedly in a story featuring a veritable chorus of experts from the political left.

The story never makes a credible case that Luntz's phraseology does other than take successful advantage of the negative connotations of words to raise awareness (and concern) about the reasonably anticipated results of the health care reform bill.

On top of that, PolitiFact makes a very weak case for the importance of the phrase in public debate over the course of the year.  The reform passed early in the year, after all, and PolitiFact provided no solid evidence that any misconception about the effect of the bill, such as the belief that it represented either a single-payer system or socialized medicine, had a significant impact on the 2010 elections.

Horrible work, PolitiFact.



Afters

PolitiFact also got around to publishing a lie about last year's "Lie of the Year" from Sarah Palin:
Rep. Earl Blumenauer, an Oregon Democrat whose provision for Medicare end-of-life care was distorted into the charge of "death panels" (last year's Lie of the Year), said the Republicans' success with the phrase was a matter of repetition.
Look up the FaceBook post that Palin used in making her "death panel" comment and you'll find nary a word about the end-of-life counseling championed by Blumenauer.  Instead, it was all about the inevitability of government bureaucrats making what amount to life-or-death decisions.

The claim from PolitiFact doesn't even jibe with its original evaluation of Palin's "death panel" remark:
Palin's claim sounds a little like another statement making the rounds, which says that health care reform would mandate counseling for seniors on how to end their lives sooner. We rated this claim Pants on Fire ! The truth is that the health bill allows Medicare, for the first time, to pay for doctors' appointments for patients to discuss living wills and other end-of-life issues with their physicians. These types of appointments are completely optional, and AARP supports the measure.
That's ineptitude, pure and simple.


Update:

Karl from Hot Air's "Green Room" published a parallel criticism of PolitiFact's "Lie of the Year" several hours before mine.  Karl's version makes an important point not found in my version:
As Michael Kinsley (founding editor of Slate, which PolitiFact relies upon as an authority) asked about ObamaCare:
If the government requires insurers to accept all customers and charge all the same price, regulates all aspects of their marketing to make sure they aren’t discriminating, and then redistributes the profits to make sure that no company gets penalized unfairly, in what sense is the industry still “private”?
Karl goes on to point out (citing Reason.com) that the CBO judged that government regulation of medical loss ratios throughout the health insurance industry were set just below the threshold at which private insurance should be considered "an essentially government program."

C'mon.  That quotation of the CBO has to be out of context, doesn't it?


'Fraid not:
A proposal to require health insurers to provide rebates to their enrollees to the extent that their medical loss ratios are less than 90 percent would effectively force insurers to achieve a high medical loss ratio. Combining this requirement with the other provisions of the PPACA would greatly restrict flexibility related to the sale and purchase of health insurance. In CBO’s view, this further expansion of the federal government’s role in the health insurance market would make such insurance an essentially governmental program, so that all payments related to health insurance policies should be recorded as cash flows in the federal budget.
The CBO report talks about rebates for MLRs above 90 percent.  the PPACA set the rebate threshold at 80 percent for the small group market and 85 percent for the group market.

Oopsie.  PolitiFact forgot to mention it.


Many thanks to Redstate for the connecting URL and additional analysis.



Dec. 21, 2010:   Added a connecting link for Karl's excellent critique of PolitiFact.  Apologies to Karl for the tardy action.

Saturday, December 11, 2010

PolitiFact-Pulitzer Prize update

One may have noticed a lack of recent entries in my series about whether PolitiFact's Pulitzer Prize in 2008 was deserved.

There's a reason for that even beyond the time requirement:  The dog ate my homework.

Sort of, anyway.

I completed the seventh installment and published it as the sixth installment, failing to realize that I had neglected to publish the sixth installment.  And while remaining under that impression I deleted what I took as an extra copy of the sixth installment (that is, the only true copy of the sixth installment).

It's been tough to motivate myself to redo the research on that item so far.  But don't lose faith.  It will probably happen within the next few months.

Now, related to my earlier research, it looks like the Pulitzer folks have updated their website with additional information about the method used to award their coveted prizes:

6. What are the criteria for the judging of The Pulitzer Prizes?
There are no set criteria for the judging of the Prizes. The definitions of each category (see How to Enter or Administration page) are the only guidelines. It is left up to the Nominating Juries and The Pulitzer Prize Board to determine exactly what makes a work "distinguished."
"(N)o set criteria."  In context, this is not so surprising.  The eligible publications are required to adhere to journalism's highest standards, which presumably include the fairness and accuracy stipulations that I've used to help evaluate about half of PolitiFact's winning group of entries.  The latter portion regarding the term "distinguished" I think reinforces my argument that PolitiFact won its Pulitzer in considerable part because of its groundbreaking format.  It's a legitimate consideration (not least because of the wide discretion given in the above FAQ item).  But it's certainly a reason to refrain from placing a high degree of trust in PolitiFact's general accuracy based on the 2008 Pulitzer Prize.

Wednesday, December 08, 2010

Grading PolitiFact (Ohio): Sherrod Brown claims unemployment is insurance, not welfare

The issue:



The fact checkers:
Stephen Koff:  writer, researcher
Robert Higss:  editor


Analysis:

Sherrod Brown appeared on MSNBC back on Nov. 30 and made the claim pictured in the above graphic (see "The issue").

Context is a wonderful thing.  Unfortunately, PolitiFact provides no way to verify the full context of Brown's conversation with Contessa Brewer (though Brown rhapsodized about the same subject on the Rachel Maddow Show back in July).

PolitiFact does provide enough context to make it look like Brown contradicts himself:
Brown says that Congress needs to show some compassion, because so many Americans are struggling to find work.

"Understand, this is unemployment insurance," Brown told MSNBC anchor Contessa Brewer on Nov. 30. "It’s not welfare, as a lot of my Republican colleagues like to suggest it is. You pay into it when you’re working. You get help when you’re not."
First Brown claims that Congress needs to show compassion.  Then Brown says that unemployment payments are a form of unemployment insurance.

Is an insurance company exhibiting "compassion" when it pays a claim?

No.  In most instances insurance companies pay claims because of a contractual obligation to pay the claim.  It's always possible, though not likely, that an insurance company will pay benefits beyond those called for in the terms of the contract.  Benefits in the latter category are conceptually identical to charity.  Brown, then, is arguing for charity (extending long-term unemployment benefits) and justifying it as the rightful payment of an insurance benefit.

It isn't cut and dried in the world of PolitiFact, however:
Brown raises several points that we thought were worth checking. The key point: Do workers pay into the unemployment system and then draw benefits from it if they lose their jobs?
PolitiFact's "key point" completely overlooks the context of Brown's statement.  Yes, prior to emergency extensions done at the discretion of the insurer (the government), unemployment benefits are an insurance benefit.  But there's no controversy in Congress about paying those benefits.  The controversy surrounds the interminable extension of unemployment benefits.

PolitiFact then digresses into the issue of who pays the premium for unemployment benefits.  Making the long story shorter, the employer pays the premium but most or all of the payment is considered part of the price of employment.  Regardless, PolitiFact is missing Brown's underlying argument and his main point as a result.

After that, PolitiFact notes that the federal contribution to unemployment benefits is not part of the insurance arrangement at the state level.  In other words, the federal dollars are not part of the insurance benefit for unemployment insurance.  One of PolitiFact's expert sources called the federal portion "deficit financing." Brown was talking about money appropriated by Congress.  How does he get away with justifying the expense as meeting the obligations of an insurance program?

PolitiFact is hot on the trail, albeit moving in the opposite direction:
One more component of Brown’s claim: that "a lot of my Republican colleagues" like to suggest that unemployment insurance is like welfare. This was an important part of the claim because it explains why he felt the need to clarify how the system is funded -- not by freeloaders but by workers who pay into the system.
Apparently we're supposed to ignore the fact that the federal component is not funded by the insurance premium.  PolitiFact uncovered that fact and has since ignored it.

As for the rabbit-trail itself, PolitiFact finds Brown "Half True" in saying that a good number of his Republican colleagues suggest unemployment insurance is like welfare.  The justification?  A good number of Republicans say that unemployment insurance serves as a disincentive to find work.

Huh?

Isn't that entirely beside the point?  If welfare made it 100 percent certain that a person would find a job it would still be welfare, wouldn't it?  How did we end up defining "welfare" in terms of its supposed disincentive effect?  That conception of "welfare" is apparently assumed in the story.  The author provides no justification (and the editor apparently couldn't care less).

PolitiFact ends up breaking down Brown's claim into three component parts (in spite of their simultaneous effort to grade just one item where possible).
So let’s break down Brown’s claim and our fact-finding.

  • "A lot of my Republican colleagues" like to suggest that jobless benefits are like welfare. What he meant was clear enough -- that they equate jobless benefits to the public dole. We can’t quantify "a lot." But Brown’s staff provided numerous examples that show there are Republicans saying they worry that jobless benefits encourage people to stay out of work. This isn’t to suggest it is a majority view. But Brown did not say "most." He said "a lot." This part of the claim, then, warrants at least a Half True.
  • "You pay into it when you’re working." Economists from the right and left agreed that this is essentially correct, with some elaboration required. So it is Mostly True.
  • "You get help when you’re not." This is True.
No doubt the elephant in the room feels greatly relieved.

The key issue should have been whether unemployment compensation was comparable to welfare according to the context in which Brown was speaking.  PolitiFact rated the first component item "Half True" based on an illogical procedure, since welfare is welfare regardless of incentive effects or the lack thereof.  The second and third items relate tangentially to the key point.  Employees pay for unemployment insurance ("You pay into it when you're working"=>"You get help when you're not"), but Congress doesn't appropriate funds for extended unemployment benefits according to the insurance contract.  Extensions self-evidently go beyond the normal schedule of benefits.

PolitiFact bought Sherrod Brown's red herring and ended up pursuing rabbit-trails.

Oh, and the "caveat":
This entire discussion needs a caveat. MSNBC put Brown on the air because of the ongoing debate over extending federal jobless benefits. The reason for debate is the fact that the federal government has to pick up the tab and it will have to borrow more to do so, at least in the short term. To put matters clearly: You pay into the unemployment compensation through your employer, and that pool of money pays for your state benefits -- but not your federal benefits -- if you lose your job.
So, apart from the fact that Brown was misleading the audience, what he said was Mostly True.  Or something like that.  Supposedly.


The grades:

Stephen Koff:  F
Robert Higgs:  F

I've applied the "journalists reporting badly" tag.


Afters:

Sherrod Brown made a remarkably similar set of claims in July on the Rachel Maddow Show:

MADDOW:  One of the things that was proven not only to be the right thing to do with people that are down on their luck but also a big economic stimulus is extending unemployment benefits.  That is something you and the Senate have been dealing with over and over and over again as republicans continue to block it.  Do you think the Senate will be able to get an extension next week?
 
BROWN:  I think we are, because Senator Byrd‘s replacement will be appointed by Governor Mansion of West Virginia.  We need one more vote, but that is the hypocrisy.  They insist we—they give tax cuts to the rich, they start wars, they do a drug and insurance company bailout giveaway.  Charge that to our grandchildren.
 
All of a sudden now, we have to pay for unemployment benefits for working people who have been in the job market for 20 or 30 years, working.  They lose their jobs.  They‘ve paid into this.  Republicans seem to think, republican senators, 41 of them vote no on unemployment time after time after time.  They seem to think that unemployment is welfare.  It‘s insurance.  You pay in when you‘re working, you get help when you‘re not. 
The problem, of course, is that the repeated votes where Republicans express opposition to extending unemployment benefits all involve extensions of unemployment benefits.  Brown's words are very misleading, and PolitiFact finds it impossible to notice.

That same Rachel Maddow segment was the subject of an earlier PolitiFact fact check.  Koff and Higgs received the "journalists reporting badly" tag on that one, also.



Dec. 11, 2010:  A URL in the final paragraph led to the wrong destination, though not by much.  Fixed it.