Grading PolitiFact: Stephanie Cutter and the case of the missing fact check

It gets a little tiresome seeing PolitiFact repeatedly engage in partial reporting on its stories.  The following may represent the supreme example.

The issue:

(clipped from PolitiFact.com)

The fact checkers:

Angie Drobnic Holan:  writer, researcher
Bill Adair:  editor


Analysis

PolitiFact sets the stage:

The Republican response to attacks on the Ryan plan has been to attack back, saying President Barack Obama has cut "$700 billion" out of Medicare. And the Democratic response to that: Well, Paul Ryan cuts that amount, too!

PolitiFact selects the claim to check:

"You know, I heard Mitt Romney deride the $700 billion cuts in Medicare that the president achieved through health care reform," Cutter said. "You know what those cuts are? It’s taking subsidies away from insurance companies, taking rebates away from prescription drug company. Is that what Mitt Romney wants to protect? And interestingly enough Paul Ryan protected those cuts in his budget."

PolitiFact avows that it will focus on "whether Cutter is correct that Ryan relies on those same reductions in his budget."

PolitiFact uses the next nine grafs to outline the nature of the $700 billion reduction in Medicare expenditures projected by the CBO.

PolitiFact's source, a CBO report, communicates the nature of the reduction a bit more clearly than does PolitiFact (yellow highlights added):

Changes to Payment Rates in Medicare
In February 2011, CBO estimated that the permanent reductions in the annual updates to Medicare’s payment rates for most services in the fee-for-service sector (other than physicians’ services) and the new mechanism for setting payment rates in the Medicare Advantage program will reduce Medicare outlays by $507 billion during the 2012–2021 period. That figure excludes interactions between those provisions and others—namely, the effects of the changes in the fee-for-service portion of Medicare on payments to Medicare Advantage plans and the effects of changes in both the fee-for-service portion of the program and in the Medicare Advantage program on collections of premiums for Part B (Supplementary Medical Insurance).

The bulk of the reduction, then, occurs as the result of the two reductions the CBO identifies.  Therefore, we should expect to see both of those features in the Ryan budget plan at minimum to rate Cutter's statement true.

Having more-or-less identified the nature of the projected Medicare savings, PolitiFact proceeds to the next phase of its fact check:

Now onto [sic] our second question: Does Ryan’s budget keep the reductions in Medicare spending? The short answer is yes.

Here’s what Ryan said in an interview with George Stephanopolous of ABC News in June, before his selection as Romney’s running mate:

Stephanopoulos: "You know, several independent fact-checkers have taken a look at that claim, the $500 billion in Medicare cuts, and said that it's misleading. And in fact, by that accounting, your budget, your own budget, which Gov. Romney has endorsed, would also have $500 billion in Medicare cuts.

Ryan: "Well, our budget keeps that money for Medicare to extend its solvency. What Obamacare does is it takes that money from Medicare to spend on Obamacare. ..." (Read the full exchange.)

Do we know from that exchange that the cost reductions come from the same source?  I don't see how, and I invite any reader who sees it to explain it with a comment below.

Slate's Dave Weigel claimed that Ryan uses the same cap on Medicare spending as Obama.  But his explanation does not appear to help PolitiFact's argument.

Weigel (bold emphasis added):

Remember, Obamacare is supposed to save $700 billion by capping the rise in Medicare spending from GDP growth plus 0.5 percent. The Ryan budgets in 2012 and 2013 don’t alter Medicare for anyone entering it before 2022—a buffer that lets current retirees breathe easy. After 2022, it turns all of Medicare into a premium support plan like Medicare Advantage. At that point, “an annual competitive bidding process” is supposed to push providers to provide lower rates. “The per capita cost of this reformed program for seniors reaching eligibility after 2023,” explains Ryan in his budget guide, “could not exceed nominal GDP growth plus 0.5 percent.” So, if it works, it’s got the exact same Medicare cap as the Obama plan.

Weigel is talking about two different means of obtaining the same future rate of growth on Medicare spending.

As for PolitiFact, it's sticking with Paul Ryan's supposed confession:

So Ryan has confirmed his budget includes the Medicare savings.

"The" Medicare savings?  The same exact ones from the ACA and not just the future rate of growth pegged at the same percentage?  How do we know that?  Where is the fact check?

PolitiFact:

Still, Ryan himself said his plan did include the reductions in future spending that were part of the federal health care law.

Sorry, but that's not a fact check and it's very misleading.  PolitiFact is seizing on an ambiguity from Ryan and insisting that it perfectly dovetails with Cutter's claim.  A real fact check would verify from the text of Ryan's budget that the savings have the same origin as those projected by the CBO for the health care reform law.  This fact check doesn't do that at all.  Ryan's budget is neither listed among the sources on the sidebar nor linked in the text of the story.

Another of PolitiFact's sources helps confirm that PolitiFact simply blew this fact check. The CBO did attempt to score Ryan's budget proposal. The CBO did a baseline scenario using the assumption that the health care reform bill would remain in effect:

The baseline scenario incorporates policies restraining Medicare spending that are embedded in current law. Such policies include the sustainable growth rate mechanism, which determines the payment rates for physicians; payments to other providers in the fee-for-service portion of Medicare that would grow more slowly over roughly the next two decades than the cost of their inputs; and the  Independent Payment Advisory Board (established by the Affordable Care Act), which is required to make changes to the Medicare program to reduce spending if the growth in such spending is projected to exceed certain targets.

And the CBO created an alternate scenario where Medicare savings were much less:

The alternative fiscal scenario incorporates less restraint on Medicare spending.  Specifically, payments for physicians would not be reduced as they would be under the sustainable growth rate mechanism, and payments to other providers  would grow more rapidly than under the baseline scenario after roughly the next decade. The remaining restraints on Medicare spending could also have the potential consequences noted for the baseline scenario, but presumably to a much lesser extent because the restraints would be much less tight.

If the cost reductions are "protected" in the Ryan budget, then why does the CBO run an alternative scenario where the supposed protected cost reductions do not occur?

By all appearances, the PolitiFact team mailed it in on this fact check.  The evidence strongly suggests that the Ryan budget plan only relies on savings through ObamaCare to the extent that the CBO assumes that existing law will remain in effect--its standard procedure--while projecting the effects of Ryan's budget.

Cutter gets a "True" for that?


The grades:

Angie Drobnic Holan:  F
Bill Adair:  F

Seriously:  Where's the fact check?


Afters:

Here's one of those statements from the CBO that seems to have a tough time finding its way into PolitiFact's fact checks (bold emphasis added):

CBO’s cost estimate for the legislation noted that it will put into effect a number of policies that might be difficult to sustain over a long period of time. The combination of those policies, prior law regarding payment rates for physicians’ services in Medicare, and other information has led CBO to project that the growth rate of Medicare spending (per beneficiary, adjusted for overall inflation) will drop from about 4 percent per year, which it has averaged for the past two decades, to about 2 percent per year on average for the next two decades. It is unclear whether such a reduction can be achieved through greater efficiencies in the delivery of health care or will instead reduce access to care or the quality of care (relative to the situation under prior law). Also, the legislation includes a provision that makes it likely that exchange subsidies will grow at a slower rate after 2018, so the shares of income that enrollees have to pay will increase more rapidly at that point, and the shares of the premiums that the subsidies cover will decline.

Grading PolitiFact (Florida): Rick Scott and rising insurance premiums under ObamaCare

PolitiFact regularly engages in prodigious spin on behalf of the health care reform bill.  The following case featuring Gov. Rick Scott of Florida and PolitFact's state operation in Florida serves as just one example among many.

The issue:

(clipped from PolitiFact.com)

The fact checkers:

Katie Sanders:  writer, researcher
Angie Drobnic Holan:  editor


Analysis:

PolitiFact quotes Rick Scott:

"(W)e know the Congressional Budget Office said if you’re going to buy your own policy with these exchanges you’ll be paying 10 percent more, or a family will. So about $2,100 more for a family. So you’re going to pay more with these exchanges."

PolitiFact finds that Scott spoke accurately:

As Scott said, CBO expected the average premium per person in new individual policies would rise 10 percent to 13 percent in 2016 compared with where it was before the law took effect.

In this market, average premiums per policy in this market would be about $5,800 for single policies (a $300 increase) and $15,200 for families (a $2,100 increase -- just like Scott said), according to CBO (pages 5 and 6).

If only the report ended there.

The third paragraph hints at significant caveats, especially since we note from the graphic at the top of the story that Scott receives a "Mostly False" rating.  Before we move on, however, note that Scott used the conservative end of the CBO estimate to back his statement.  He used 10 percent instead of 13 percent.  Sometimes PolitiFact uses such factors to award extra credit.  Apparently not this time.

Now for some mighty PolitiFact spin.

PolitiFact explains that using an "apples to apples" comparison in the same CBO report leads to the CBO's conclusion that the provisions of the PPACA lead to a net savings of 7 to 10 percent on the average premium.  The "apples to apples" comparison shows that the exchange system does provide some features that reduce insurance premiums.  The CBO report estimates that for equivalent plans the exchange would save 7-10 percent compared to current law.  Of course the exchanges require much higher levels of insurance, than the current average, and this spikes the cost of premiums.

The CBO's estimate of  the ACA's effect on nongroup insurance premiums

The CBO's chart makes clear that the increase in premiums stems from increases in insurance coverage.  Curiously, PolitiFact calls this a benefit:

People will pay more, but it will be for a bigger swath of benefits. The law requires insurance companies to offer an "essential health benefits" package that would mirror benefits people get through employer plans.

People receive benefits from insurance when their insurance pays for something.  A healthy person who goes to the doctor once per year for 10 years regardless of insurance coverage is not receiving any additional benefit from insurance coverage.  The person is paying much more for the same benefits.

PolitiFact actually refers to coverage when it refers to benefits.  The expanded scope of health coverage primarily enables the government to expand the pool of people paying for insurance so that healthy people who do not have an immediate need of insurance will help pay the benefits of others--a much wider swath of benefits.  In short, overall medical costs go way up while the premium costs per individual go down.  This from a bill that was sold as a means of controlling rising medical costs.  It doesn't do much at all to control costs.  Instead, it coerces the people into paying for higher overall costs.  And the bill contains measures that shift  costs from those who present the biggest risk to those with thicker wallets.

Where does that leave us on this fact check?  PolitiFact charges Scott with leaving things out, and we'll address those charges individually.

Many (CBO estimates 57 percent) seeking nongroup insurance through state exchanges would receive subsidies.

Scott specifically referred to persons paying for their own insurance through the exchanges, which implicitly acknowledges subsidies.  The availability of subsidies through the exchanges should be common knowledge.  It's hard to see why PolitiFact should fault Scott for this omission, especially when the subsidies drive overall costs up instead of bringing them down.  Insurance subsidies represent progressive partial free riding.

Though the insured pay more, they receive a "bigger swath of benefits"

PolitiFact tries to make this seem like a huge benefit, but it's kind of like getting an expensive Buick when all you really need is a Kia.  There's no more Kia.  The Buick is the new entry-level automobile.  And maybe the Buick has leather upholstery, but then again maybe you're a vegan (celibates paying for contraception and pregnancy insurance).  Again,. there's no reason why Scott should need to provide this detail.  He's giving reasons why he's not setting up an exchange.  His objections have to do with overall cost and the priorities of Floridians.  When everyone's driving a Buick, people are paying more for transportation even if Buick drops its prices down to wholesale.

Exchanges do help lower costs in an "apples to apples" comparison

To the extent that Gov. Scott's statement suggests that exchanges do nothing to encourage cost reductions, PolitiFact has a point.  Buick dealers can compete against each other to provide the lowest-cost Buick and that competition does have an effect, not to mention economies of scale.  But Scott emphasizes overall health care costs, so he is justified in keeping the emphasis on the overall increase in premiums.

"People purchasing their own health insurance comprise less than one-fifth of the market"

People who are not purchasing their own health insurance are not purchasing it through an exchange, so this point is irrelevant.  There's no reason for Scott to mention it, since he's giving reasons for not setting up a state exchange.  In fact, the smaller the share of the market, arguably the greater justification Scott has for not setting up an exchange.

PolitiFact routinely asserts that Scott leaves out important information.  PolitiFact routinely leaves out the justification for calling the information important.  Scott's omissions were of borderline relevance at most.

PolitiFact:

Scott said that the Congressional Budget Office said people would pay 10 percent more for policies on the exchange, "so about $2,100 more for a family." What he doesn’t say is that these policies will have to offer comprehensive coverage. So people will pay more, but they’re also get more benefits. Additionally, the federal government will offer subsidies to many of these people to cut the cost.

It’s also important to remember the CBO’s "apples-to-apples" comparison. According to the agency, people in the individual market will actually pay less for the required amount of benefits under the Affordable Care Act than they would for those same benefits under old policies.

We rate Scott’s statement Mostly False.

Note that while Scott emphasized overall medical costs to the state of Florida and its people, PolitiFact's objections all center around costs to the individual.  PolitiFact ignored Scott's central point and graded him according to a standard that failed to respect the context of his remarks.

The "Truth-O-Meter" ruling, as is so often the case, represents an absurdity.  PolitiFact defines "Mostly False" as a statement that "contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression."  But Scott's statement does not simply contain an element of truth.  His statement is perfectly accurate and even takes the lower premium increase estimate from the CBO report.  None of PolitiFact's caveats alter the impression that a family paying for its own insurance faces a 10 percent hike, unless it shows that the CBO said the hike might end up at 13 percent instead.

This case points up again that despite PolitiFact's continued assertions that "words matter" it makes a great big exception for itself when it comes to defining the "Truth-O-Meter" grades.

Scott's statements were more truthful than PolitiFact's, using the same measure.


The grades:

Katie Sanders:  F
Angie Drobnic Holan:  F

This story reads like a PPACA apologetic, not like a fact check.  The PolitiFact team substituted its own point for Gov. Scott's point and graded Scott according to the result.  That's a wrong approach for fact checking, as PolitiFact admits in its statement of principles:

Context matters -- We examine the claim in the full context, the comments made before and after it, the question that prompted it, and the point the person was trying to make.

PolitiFact may think it grand that everyone in the exchange gets a good deal on a Buick, but that doesn't undermine Scott's point that getting everyone a Buick imposes a heavy burden in terms of cost.

Buick.com

PolitiFact's push poll resurfaces

PolitiFact continues to push the idea that ObamaCare is not so different at all from RomneyCare.  RomneyCare, after all, established an Independent Payment Advisory Board in Massachusetts to help control the growth of Medicare spending ... oh, wait, never mind.

To help you get ready for next week's arguments on the health care law before the U.S. Supreme Court, we will be publishing some helpful guides and summaries. For our first installment, we're re-publishing our fiendishly difficult quiz to see if you know the difference between RomneyCare and ObamaCare.

What a laugh!  What is it about the RomenyCare/ObamaCare comparison that helps somebody "get ready" for the arguments before the Supreme Court?  Did RomneyCare proponents justify a power to enact the law according to either the "necessary and proper" clause or the Constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce?  How much "interstate commerce" goes on within the borders of Massachusetts?

Tuesday's item was just an excuse to dust off PolitiFact's RomneyCare comparison push-poll, complete with the helpful hints from two past PolitiFact items where the port-listing fact checkers find "Mostly True" claims that RomneyCare is identical to ObamaCare.

Grading PolitiFact (Florida): The IPAB, rationing, and Pat Boone

PANTS ON FIRE – The statement is not accurate and makes a ridiculous claim.
--Principles of PolitiFact and the Truth-O-Meter

The issue:

(clipped from PolitiFact.com)

The fact checkers:

Angie Drobnic Holan:  writer, researcher
Aaron Sharockman: editor

Analysis:

The Independent Payment Advisory Board is a "death panel" as Sarah Palin originally used the term.

PolitiFact is dead set against admitting it.

It's fun to watch the contortions as PolitiFact does its usual denial in the context of the Pat Boone television ad.

PolitiFact:

Here’s part of Boone’s criticism; it focuses on the law’s Independent Payment Advisory Board, or IPAB:

"This IPAB board can ration care and deny certain Medicare treatments so Washington can fund more wasteful spending. Your choices could be limited and you may not be able to keep your own doctor. ... Washington politicians, like Bill Nelson, are ignoring the problem, putting their own re-elections first. Call Sen. Nelson. Urge him to support real Medicare reform and protect our seniors."

The ad makes several claims, but here, we’re going to specifically fact-check Boone’s claim that the IPAB "can ration care and deny certain Medicare treatments so Washington can fund more wasteful spending."

The statement PolitiFact chooses is obviously a compound claim, including the assertions that the IPAB can ration care, that it can deny certain Medicare treatments, and that some combination of the former two enable Washington to fund "more wasteful spending."  The obvious warrants mention because PolitiFact makes little effort to keep its treatment of the constituent statements distinct from one another.

PolitiFact:

Under the health care reform law, if Medicare spending growth is projected to exceed pre-set targets, the IPAB must come up with plans to slow that increase. If Congress does not act on the recommendations within a set time, IPAB’s recommendations automatically go into effect. (For a more detailed explanation of how this would work, we recommend this April 2011 report from the independent Kaiser Family Foundation.)

PolitiFact summarizes the function of the IPAB reasonably well.  The challenge comes from trying to identify IPAB recommendations that do not result in economic forces that result in the rationing of Medicare services, though there's always the option of ignoring the economic implications.

We should emphasize here that IPAB recommendations would not apply to any particular individual, but would be across-the-board policy recommendations applied to the entire program. Given Boone’s rhetoric, some people could get the wrong impression that the board would review individual patient treatments and deny care. That’s not the case.

There's nothing about Boone's statement that particularly suggests he's talking about a policy managed at the level of individual patients.  No statement is idiot proof, so PolitiFact's observation is effectively irrelevant without something straight from Boone that contributes to a misleading impression for a reasonable person.

PolitiFact (bold emphasis added):

Boone calls the members of the IPAB "15 unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats." Rather than career government workers, the law says IPAB members shall include people with national recognition for health care expertise, including "different  professionals, broad geographic representation, and a balance between urban and rural representatives." (Board members are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate.) On the point of accountability, we’ll just repeat that Congress retains the power to overrule any IPAB recommendations, though there are special rules in place so that the recommendations cannot be filibustered or otherwise delayed. 

Though it's a bit of a digression, it is useful to point out PolitiFact's failure to address Boone's point about a lack of accountability for the IPAB.  The IPAB is parallel to the Supreme Court in some ways.  The board members have no constituency or higher body to which they are accountable.  It is an independent board.  It says so right on the label.  It is irrelevant to the accountability of the board members that Congress has a shot to overrule its recommendations.  That is a check on its power, not a form of accountability.

The IPAB has restrictions on what it can recommend in the name of cost savings. It can’t raise rates, drop beneficiaries or ration care. Here’s the exact language from the law itself:

"The proposal shall not include any recommendation to ration health care, raise revenues or Medicare beneficiary premiums under section 1818, 1818A, or 1839, increase Medicare beneficiary cost-sharing (including deductibles, coinsurance, and copayments), or otherwise restrict benefits or modify eligibility criteria."

Boone says the IPAB seeks to reduce Medicare spending so the government can spend money on other "wasteful" things. But the IPAB is intended to slow Medicare spending if its growth exceeds pre-defined targets. It’s also capped on how much it can reduce spending: It can recommend measures to bring Medicare within specific cost-savings targets and no more.

1)  Given the second paragraph above along with the stipulation that the IPAB cannot recommend rationing, we again find ourselves confronted with the question of what IPAB can do to control costs--and whether those measures result in rationing after all.

2)  The third paragraph repeats the pattern noted above regarding Boone's point about accountability.  PolitiFact does not address the congressional option of wasting money saved through the implementation of IPAB recommendations.

3)  One continues to wonder what the IPAB can do to cut Medicare spending without encouraging rationing as a result.  The "pre-defined targets" are a soft cap on Medicare spending.  Capping spending directly encourages rationing of services.  If a family goes out to dinner with a cap on spending then it is price-rationing the meal.  If a dining-out IPAB finds a way to reduce the tab to bring the family's meal down within the bounds of a soft cap that is likewise a rationing force.  It's inevitable.  One can plan to stiff the server, but that route by analogy leads to yet more rationing in the health care context.

PolitiFact:

Our ruling

Boone said, "This IPAB board can ration care and deny certain Medicare treatments so Washington can fund more wasteful spending." Actually, the law specifically states that the board cannot ration care. The board doesn’t look at individual patients or deny individual treatments. Instead, it makes system-wide recommendations to rein in the future growth of Medicare spending, and it makes those recommendations within limited parameters. It also was created to stop runaway spending growth within the Medicare program itself, not to divert money to other budget items. We rate Boone’s statement Pants on Fire.

It's just crazy to render a ruling without giving a single example of a cost-cutting strategy the IPAB can recommend without some type of rationing occurring as a result.  If the IPAB can only recommend measures that lead to rationing then the ruling "Pants on Fire" cannot reasonably apply to Boone's claim.

Maybe the IPAB has tools at its disposal that will limit costs but PolitiFact simply failed to take note?

Let's look at the Kaiser Family Foundation summary of the IPAB to see if it helps answer that question.

The statute sets target growth rates for Medicare spending. The target is not a "hard cap" on Medicare spending growth, but if spending exceeds these targets, IPAB is required to submit recommendations to reduce Medicare spending by a specified percentage (discussed below).

There's the soft cap.  It's important to note that a soft cap is nothing like no cap at all.  The IPAB is charged to act any time Medicare spending exceeds the targeted goal.  The recommendations must reduce the amount of excess spending:

If projected growth for the implementation year exceeds the target, and the medical care component of the CPI-U exceeds the CPI-U, then IPAB is required to develop and submit a proposal to bring Medicare per capita growth within the target in the implementation year, subject to the applicable limits (maximum savings) on reductions described below.

Congress cannot overrule the Board's recommendations without substituting its own recommendations to meet the cost reduction goal:

Finally we get to see some examples of recommendations the IPAB might make (bold emphasis added):

IPAB is prohibited from including any recommendation that would: (1) ration health care; (2) raise revenues or increase Medicare beneficiary premiums or cost sharing; or (3) otherwise restrict benefits or modify eligibility criteria. In addition, for implementation years through 2019, mandatory proposals cannot include recommendations that would reduce payment rates for providers and suppliers of services scheduled to receive reductions under the ACA below the level of the automatic annual productivity adjustment called for under the Act.16 As a result, payments for inpatient and outpatient hospital services, inpatient rehabilitation and psychiatric facilities, long-term care hospitals, and hospices are exempt from IPAB-proposed reductions in payment rates until 2020; clinical laboratories are exempt until 2016. These exclusions leave Medicare Advantage, the Part D prescription drug program, skilled nursing facility, home health, dialysis, ambulance and ambulatory surgical center services, and durable medical equipment (DME) as the focus of attention.

The above implies that price controls on some services and medical supplies will end up the IPAB's method of choice for controlling costs.  It is widely recognized in economics that price controls--price ceilings--reduce supply.  Reducing the supply results in a rationed market for those services or goods.

Put simply, text of the health care law is incorrect when it says the IPAB cannot cut costs via rationing.

Journalistic curiosity ought to prompt hard questions on these points--especially in a fact check.  One could hazard a guess that journalistic curiosity was anesthetized by ideology.


The grades:

Angie Drobnic Holan:  F
Aaron Sharockman:  F

The first PolitiFact Bias research project will suggest that all "Pants on Fire" ratings are unfair and the result of a subjective determination by the responsible PolitiFact teams.  Pat Boone's statement was neither false nor ridiculously false in any non-subjective sense.  It was at least somewhat accurate when considered objectively.

These journalists are probably either biased in favor of health care reform roughly along the lines of the ACA or else painted into a corner on this ruling by other PolitiFact rulings that were influenced by ideology.  It's hard to explain the collected set of rulings on health care reform any other way.


Addendum:

After publishing, I ran across "The Coming Medical Ethics Crisis" over at Reason.com:

In 2010 the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act established an Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB). Beginning in 2014, the 15 presidential appointees on this board will determine what therapies, procedures, tests, and medications will be covered by Medicare, using advice provided by the FCCCER. Such determinations will then be used to design the coverage packages for the non-Medicare insurance offered through the government–run exchanges. The decisions of the IPAB are not subject to Congressional oversight or judicial review.

I have not corroborated some of the information from the article.  Read it all, and consider that the source is a doctor.  Then stay on the lookout for information that confirms (or contradicts) the details and don't say nobody warned us.


Update:  Altered the title and tags to reflect the fact that the fact check was done by PolitiFact's Florida franchise.

Grading PolitiFact: Mitt Romney and $95 billion in savings

Context matters -- We examine the claim in the full context, the comments made before and after it, the question that prompted it, and the point the person was trying to make.
--Principles of PolitiFact and the Truth-O-Meter

Ordinarily I do not participate in PolitiFact's uber-lame "Lie of the Year" voting, but I'll consider the above as a write-in entry when the time comes.

This issue:

(clipped from PolitiFact.com)

The fact checkers:

Angie Drobnic Holan:  writer, researcher
Bill Adair:  editor


Analysis:

Even though I see stuff like this from PolitiFact pretty much every week I still can't believe my eyes sometimes.

PolitiFact rates "False" Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's claim that repealing ObamaCare would save $95 billion.  So let's see how PolitiFact reasons it out (bold emphasis added):

Mitt Romney has recently been emphasizing one of the favorite themes of the tea party movement: cutting government spending.

He’s been getting pretty specific about some of his ideas, both in an op-ed in USA Today and in speeches on the campaign trail. His plans include ending subsidies for Amtrak, stopping funding the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and eliminating foreign aid to countries "that oppose America’s interests."

He also wants to save money by rolling back President Barack Obama’s signature health care law.

See the change?  PolitiFact avers that Romney's op-ed talks about ways to cut government spending.  That's in the first graph.  By the third graph, the idea has morphed into saving money.  The two can mean the same thing but do not necessarily mean the same thing.

PolitiFact:

He made the point in the USA Today op-ed, suggesting he would  "repeal ObamaCare, which would save $95 billion in 2016."

We were surprised by his suggestion. As we remembered the health care negotiations, Democrats took pains to make sure the 2010 health care law was projected to reduce the deficit, and they bragged repeatedly about their numbers.

PolitiFact's surprise is apparently a product of a liberal bias.

Romney was writing about reducing spending in that section of his op-ed, not about the net effect of repealing the health care reform bill.  It's easy to prove (bold emphasis added):

There are three ways to reduce spending, which combined, will achieve a fiscal turnaround of this size.

First, eliminate every government program that is not absolutely essential. There are many things government does that we may like but that we do not need. The test should be this: "Is this program so critical that it is worth borrowing money to pay for it?" The federal government should stop doing things we don't need or can't afford. For example:

 

•Repeal ObamaCare, which would save $95 billion in 2016.

Taking context into account, Romney's list of bullet points are his suggestions for cutting spending.  It is perfectly legitimate to talk about spending cuts as distinct from overall deficit reduction.  Somehow this is lost on the fact finders at PolitiFact.  Even setting aside the misleading nature of the CBO scoring for the PPACA (the doc fix and CLASS, to name two obvious examples), PolitiFact constructs a straw man version of Romney's argument.

As a result, the subsequent paragraphs lauding the supposed budget savings from the PPACA are irrelevant.  Romney was talking about cutting spending, not cutting the deficit as such.

PolitiFact sums up:

So according to the CBO analysis, a full repeal of the bill would reduce the deficit by $16 billion in 2016, much less than the number Romney cited.

Romney cited a number for a reduction in spending.  PolitiFact grades him on deficit reduction.  Of the two, PolitiFact is the one engaged in partisan spin.

It's disgusting to label this schlock as a fact check.

The judgment from On High:

If Romney had only criticized the law as an expansion of government spending, he would have been on firmer ground. Instead, he asserted that a repeal of the law would save significant money -- $95 billion. In fact, the law included new taxes and cost reductions so that the actual savings for the year he cited would be much smaller -- $16 billion. And, over the long haul, repealing the law actually adds significantly to the deficit. So we rate his statement False.

Romney did criticize the law in terms of its expansion of government spending.  And not spending $95 million saves $95 million in spending.

The grades:

Angie Drobnic Holan:  F
Bill Adair:  F

Together, they are journalists reporting badly.

Defending the "doc fix" omission?

Jonathan Bernstein is one of a number of liberal pundits writing in defense of the CBO scoring of the PPACA. Bernstein, in fact called out Speaker of the House John Boehner for telling a "whopper" when he citing the omission of the "doc fix" when referring to the scoring of the bill.

Here's how Bernstein describes it over at The New Republic:

The doc fix, as many have explained, wasn’t counted in the CBO score of the health care bill because it has essentially nothing to do with the health care bill.

Good grief.  The 'doc fix' has everything to do with the health care bill because the bill supposedly brings down health care costs.  But the reduction in health care costs is an illusion precisely because the bill (and the CBO as a result) pretends that Congress will not continue to apply the "doc fix."  Boehner's point, which should be obvious and irresistible, is that a cost scoring that ignores reality holds little value.

Bernstein then makes the absurd charge that the "doc fix" should be counted as a cost of a repeal of the PPACA, apparently reasoning that if the CBO supposedly should include it in the scoring of health care reform then it should be included for the repeal of the same bill.

Bernstein misses the point.

The scoring of either the bill or its repeal is made substantially moot by ignoring things that are likely to happen regardless of either bill, such as the "doc fix."  The supposed increase to the deficit found in the CBO's repeal scoring is essentially the reciprocal figure for the projected deficit reduction of the PPACA.  Call that figure A, and the cost of the "doc fix" D.   Bernstein would turn the math on its head by adding the cost of the "doc fix" to A as a cost of repeal (repeal supposedly costs A+D).  But note that his strategy will not work if both projections count the "doc fix."  The figure (A-D) (reform) does not counterbalance -(A+D) (repeal) and the reciprocal relationship of the two CBO scores cannot hold.

The figure D is a reality because the "doc fix" is necessary to keep Medicare providers from abandoning Medicare.  It's a figure that will affect health care costs in reality.  The CBO did project the savings for the PPACA in part by assuming that the "doc fix" would not occur under the bill.  That means that figure A is a sham.  And figure A is a sham regardless of whether it appears as a deficit reduction under the PPACA or as a deficit increase under its repeal.

To be sure, there is a feature of the PPACA that would have an effect on government revenue.  The bill levies tax increases.  A strong economy might bear tax increases and a deficit decrease may result.  With a weaker economy, the tax increase may further hurt commerce and increase the deficit over the long term.

The big lie from Bernstein comes from his truth that the "doc fix" was not part of the reform bill.  Because the "doc fix" could easily have been made part of the bill except for the fact that the bill could never have been made to appear relatively deficit neutral and passed via reconciliation while acknowledging the hard reality of the "doc fix."