Grading PolitiFact (Florida): Is U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Bill Nelson ad accurate?

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

Hogwash.


The issue:

(clipped from PolitiFact.com)

The fact checkers:

Angie Drobnic Holan:  writer, researcher
Louis Jacobson:  researcher
Katie Sanders:  researcher
Aaron Sharockman:  editor


Analysis:

This story by PolitiFact Florida manifests that special type of journalistic incompetence that could easily double as deliberate campaign activity on behalf of the Democratic Party's senatorial candidate, Bill Nelson.

PolitiFact does provide the context of the ad, which gives the lie, directly or indirectly, to pretty much the entire PolitiFact analysis:

U.S. Chamber: "Obamacare will be a nightmare for Florida seniors. Did Bill Nelson consider the consequences when he cast a deciding vote for Obamacare?"

Nelson: "This legislation is gonna let folks that are happy with their insurance keep it …"

U.S. Chamber: "Wrong. 20 million people could lose their current coverage."

Nelson: "... including our senior citizens who are on Medicare."

U.S. Chamber: "But Senator, seniors will see $500 billion in Medicare cuts to fund Obamacare. Call Bill Nelson. Tell him to support the repeal of Obamacare."

It is pretty well established that it was not true of the ACA that folks who are happy with their insurance will necessarily have the opportunity to keep their existing insurance.  Even PolitiFact didn't swallow that line from President Obama.  Criticizing that same line from Sen. Nelson constitutes the immediate context of the ad.

PolitiFact focuses on a would-be broader context where the ad supposedly implies that 20 million Medicare beneficiaries will* lose their current insurance:

Here, we’re checking whether "20 million people could lose their current coverage," and whether those people are older Americans on Medicare as the ad strongly suggests.

Don't hold your breath waiting for PolitiFact to substantiate its claim that the ad "strongly suggests" that 20 million Medicare beneficiaries will lose their current coverage.  It never happens.  Instead, we get a series of statements that essentially repeat the charge without any supporting evidence:  "The ad makes it sound like 20 million seniors will be losing coverage," "The ad blurs these distinctions in a way that’s highly misleading," "Yet it seems like that’s the reasonable interpretation of the ad" and "The ad from the U.S. Chamber makes it sound like 20 million older Americans will lose coverage under the health care law."

Apparently since the ad opens with the claim that "Obamacare will be a nightmare for Florida seniors," PolitiFact assumes that some portion of the ad must support that statement.  But that simply isn't the case.  The ad follows up by showing Nelson making false statements about the health plan he supported and the ad questions whether Nelson considered the consequences of his vote.  That's fair game in politics.

Is the jump from the claim that ObamaCare is disastrous for Florida seniors to Nelson's ill-stated advocacy a proper justification for a "Pants on Fire" rating?  PolitiFact wants us to think so, and uses techniques that make the U.S. Chamber of Commerce ad look completely aboveboard by comparison.

Shenanigan A:

We read (CBO) the report, which analyzes the health care law of 2010, also known as the Affordable Care Act. We quickly realized the ad was mixing apples and oranges.

On the contrary, rather than mixing apples and oranges the ad uses the higher boundary of an estimate of those who will lose existing employer-provided coverage to represent the number of citizens overall who will lose their existing coverage.  Logically, the higher boundary on the loss of existing coverage for all Americans is higher than that for just those in the employer-provided market.  The claim that the ad mixes apples and oranges stands if PolitiFact demonstrates that the ad is saying that 20 million Medicare beneficiaries will lose their existing coverage.  PolitiFact never undertakes that demonstration.

Shenanigan B:

Even if the ad had provided proper context of employer-provided insurance, it’s still not exactly the case that 20 million people will lose coverage under the health insurance law.

The ad said "could lose," not "will lose."

Shenanigan C:

Second, some portion of that (20 million) number are people voluntarily switching to other, better coverage -- not being forced out of coverage against their will.

Ah, the old "conjecture as evidence" ploy.  "Are" suggests a fact in evidence.  But the consequences of the law foretold in the CBO report are not yet in evidence.  As chronicled in an earlier "Grading PolitiFact" entry, PolitiFact invented its evidence on this point.  Is it possible that a person will voluntarily leave employer-provided coverage for coverage under an exchange?  Sure, barely.  But subsidized exchange coverage under the health care reform act is not available to those forsaking employer-offered coverage.  Those doing so pay for their insurance out of their own pockets, and in addressing that point the CBO notes that consumers in the insurance market strongly tend to choose the less expensive option.  PolitiFact has an excellent record of ignoring that detail from the report.

Shenanigan D (bold emphasis added):

We contacted the Center for Medicare Advocacy, a nonprofit group that works with Medicare beneficiaries to educate them on the program and help them get access to care. We asked executive director Judith Stein if there was any scenario in which seniors would lose coverage under the new health care law.

"If they’re stating that 20 million people would lose Medicare because of the Affordable Care Act, that is simply not true. In fact, the health care law strengthens Medicare coverage," Stein said.

Note the leading nature of the question posed to Stein.  The question uses as its premise the supposition that the ad says seniors will lose insurance coverage, not that seniors will lose their current plan.  And for many seniors, the current plan is a Medicare Advantage plan.

From the Medicare's chief actuary, Richard Foster:

The new provisions will generally reduce MA rebates to plans and thereby result in less generous benefit packages. We estimate that in 2017, when the MA provisions will be fully phased in, enrollment in MA plans will be lower by about 50 percent (from its projected level of 14.8 million under the prior law to 7.4 million under the new law).

As with the decreased enrollment in employer-provided insurance, the abandonment of existing Medicare Advantage insurance plans will occur primarily because of price rationing.

PolitiFact would leave its readers none the wiser.

Now to evaluate the ad according to an alternative reasonable interpretation.

The ad doesn't support its claim that the health care reform bill will prove disastrous for Florida seniors.  Instead, it makes the case that Bill Nelson's advocacy for the reform bill was misplaced.  That is the meaning of the ad's question "Did Bill Nelson consider the consequences when he cast a deciding vote for Obamacare?"

To support the idea that Nelson's perception of the consequences was awry, the ad shows him making the debunked claim that those who like their current insurance plan will be able to keep that plan.  Nelson expands on that claim by specifically mentioning Medicare.  The response in the ad points to a Medicare "cut" that reallocates the funding toward ObamaCare.  A portion of that reduction to projected Medicare spending comes from the reduced Medicare Advantage rebates mentioned above by Medicare's chief actuary.

PolitiFact crashes into this problem again and again.  Fair interpretation requires charitable interpretation of every statement.  It is flatly improper for fact checkers to arbitrarily prefer one "reasonable" interpretation over another.  The claim that 20 million may lose existing insurance--the claim PolitiFact chose to check--is flatly true by the CBO report because the total number of Americans who may lose existing coverage cannot be less than the number of Americans who may lose employer-based coverage.  PolitiFact's suggestion that the ad implies that the full 20 million come from Medicare carries the appearance of mendacity.


The grades:

Angie Drobnic Holan:  F
Aaron Sharockman:  F

I'm not offering grades for those who merely contributed research.

The two listed above are journalists reporting badly.


*Update/Clarification 5/18/2012:   I wrote early in the post that PolitiFact says "the ad supposedly implies that 20 million Medicare beneficiaries will lose their current insurance."  That statement is accurate in the context of the the entire fact check but is not fully supported by the quotation immediately following.  I considered changing it but decided on an explanatory note instead.

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.

Piquing PolitiFact: Who knew? Preventive care doesn't save money! (Updated)

The blogger with whom I share the PolitiFact Bias blog, Jeff Dyberg, discovered an apparent contradiction in PolitiFact's reporting on health care reform.

In 2009 and recently in 2012, PolitiFact ruled it "False" that preventive health care saves money.

Jeff discovered a 2008 story in which PolitiFact reported that preventive care saves money.

PolitiFact, 2008 (bold emphasis added):

Obama's plan essentially takes today's system and seeks to expand it to the uninsured. It creates national pools for individuals to buy their own cheaper insurance. It increases eligibility for the poor and children to enroll in initiatives like Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. And it has several strategies to rein in costs for everyone, such as streamlining medical record-keeping and emphasizing preventive care. 

 In 2008, PolitiFact went along with the accepted wisdom that preventive care saves money.

Perhaps the 2008 story needs a correction?  The responsible thing would be to let PolitiFact know about the problem.  How can they fix the problem if they don't know about it?

March 8, 2012:

Dear Angie Drobnic Holan,
cc Amy Hollyfield

My friend Jeff Dyberg just found something interesting, and it has us wondering. 

Here's what he found in a 2008 PolitiFact article (yours):

"And it has several strategies to rein in costs for everyone, such as streamlining medical record-keeping and emphasizing preventive care."

As you're probably aware, PolitiFact has since ruled it "False" that preventive care saves money. 

The question, then, is how PolitiFact's process led it from reporting as a matter of fact that preventive care saves money to fact checking the same claim.  Did the news cycle generate the question or did somebody at PolitiFact suddenly question the prevailing assumption without external prompting?

The secondary question is whether the 2008 item will warrant a correction.  I think we both know the answer to that one.  ;-)

 It's still early.  We'll see what happens.


Update 1: 

Jeff Dyberg notes in the commentary section that The New York Times weighed in earlier this month with a story suggesting that PolitiFact's first example of a cost-saving measure, moving to electronic record-keeping, may not cut costs any more than does preventive care:

Computerized patient records are unlikely to cut health care costs and may actually encourage doctors to order expensive tests more often, a study published on Monday concludes.

It's a good thing for the health care overhaul that there are still other cost-saving measures like the CLASS Act and the Independent Payment Advisory Board.

Shooting magic blanks

Our favorite St. Petersburg Times commie columnist*, Robyn "Blumñata" Blumner is at it again, celebrating anniversary after anniversary of the perfect marriage between economic cluelessness and leftist ideology.

Perhaps that's redundant.

Anyhow, Blumñata's latest column blasts Republicans for supposedly presenting tort reform as a magic bullet for controlling the increase in health care costs before offering her own solution based on little more than a rhetorical "Abracadabra!"

On Republican magic bullets:

While everyone agrees that spiraling Medicaid costs are a problem that need addressing, Republican politicians would have you believe that tort reform is the magic bullet to cost containment, winning them plaudits and contributions from the medical community.

According to my recollection, Republicans advanced tort reform as a conspicuously missing piece of Democratic Party health care reform proposals.  Blumner apparently thought it unnecessary to provide any example of the type of advocacy with which she charges Republicans.

But at least she comes through with a stellar example when it comes to her own magical thinking:

While defensive medicine — where doctors order tests and procedures as a hedge against malpractice suits — undoubtedly adds unnecessary costs, it is not the main driver. That dishonor goes to one overarching factor: bad jobs — something Republicans don't want to talk about.

Blumner's claim is sheer lunacy, unless by "bad jobs" she literally means jobs that result in making it more likely that workers will require expensive medical care.  The only thing a bad job does is make health care, at whatever price it carries, less affordable.

This is an important distinction progressives like Blumner seem to handle with difficulty.  Suppose we had available a spinal replacement surgery, but it came a cost of $2 trillion per procedure.  In Blumner's world, spinal replacement surgery represents a terrible thing because it's just one more way that health care is unaffordable.  And such prices help necessitate universal coverage where "the rich" share the costs of expensive procedures.  That way, rich folks like Bill Gates can be forced to help underwrite spinal replacement surgery for dozens of people who can't even afford basic health insurance.

Of course, we don't have spinal replacement surgery at any cost--yet.  But the hypothetical procedure illustrates the primary driver of increased medical costs:  medical innovation.

If the only medical care we had was plaster casts, pain killers and 19th century surgical procedures then medical costs would be very low today.  It's not that hard to saw off a leg.  Medical costs increase rapidly because the technology to accomplish more medical treatment is increasing rapidly.  And even when a new advance is relatively inexpensive, such as treatment for erectile dysfunction, overall medical costs increase because people expect such treatments to make up part of their medical care.  That's why even Viagra was covered for a time under Medicare.

The cost (price) of treating erectile dysfunction went down.  The amount of money spent (cost) of treating erectile dysfunction went up.  It's a classic supply-and-demand curve.

And then there's the cost of health insurance as contrasted to the price of health care.  As above, if health insurance covered plaster casts, pain killers and 19th century surgical procedures then health insurance would be extremely affordable--no doubt a small fraction of what it costs today given coverage of everything from cancer treatment to substance abuse treatment.  But government regulators tell insurance companies what they have to cover.  And because so many expensive health procedures exist, the cost of covering the risk of providing those procedures grows right along with it.  The consumer foots the bill where the state mandates increases in the cost of shared risk.

If Blumner has any clue about any of this then her expertise in hiding it for the purpose of her columns cannot be questioned.


* I don't know that Blumner's a communist.  People in the comments section at the Times like to call her that, and I like alliteration ("commie columnist").  She likes organized labor and big government.  She calls herself an atheist.  So if she's not a communist then at least she has a thing or two in common. The description is not intended to identify her as a communist, however.  It is intended as alliterative hyperbole.



Hat tip to JD for pointing out the mess I had made of the third paragraph.  A redundancy has been removed and the phrasing changed slightly to meet my exceedingly high standards of something-or-other.

PolitiProps: Obama's 12 judges

Credit where it's due:  The PolitiFact rating of President Obama regarding his claim of support from 12 judges for the constitutionality of health care reform seems quite fair.

I can see room within PolitiFact's grading system for anything from "Pants on Fire" to "Barely True."  PolitiFact aimed for the middle with a "False" rating.

An accurate grading, even if repeated regularly, obviously does not free PolitiFact from the charge of political bias.  But it does help serve as a reassurance that PolitiFact's journalists operate with the aim of doing their jobs fairly.

Grading PolitiFact: Talking points from the Van Hollen twins

To assess the truth for a numbers claim, the biggest factor is the underlying message. 
--Bill Adair, PolitiFact

The issues:

click to enlarge

The fact checkers:

Group A
Robert Farley:  writer, researcher
Louis Jacobson:  writer, researcher
Martha Hamilton:  editor

Group B
Robert Farley:  writer, researcher
Louis Jacobson:  writer, researcher
Martha Hamilton:  editor

Analysis:

Both fact checks come from the same Van Hollen utterance:

“I’m interested to hear my colleagues say that they can identify with all the problems in the health care system.  Between the year 2000 and 2006, premiums in this country doubled, health insurance company profits quadrupled, and this Congress did nothing."
(yellow and blue highlights added)

The yellow highlights indicate the portion of the quotation that PolitiFact chose to fact check.  The blue highlights indicate where I believe Van Hollen expressed his underlying point.

This is what Van Hollen looked like in action, for those interested:




Claim A

PolitiFact:

In fact, we first visited a very similar claim when Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., wrote a Sept. 21, 2009, opinion piece for the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call in which he said, "Insurance companies have seen their profits soar by more than 400 percent since 2001, while premiums for consumers have doubled."

And that's no idle reminiscence.  PolitiFact pretty much recycles the earlier fact check.  Rockefeller ended up with a "Half True" rating.  Van Hollen cherry-picked his years with greater care--2001 through 2006 instead of 2001 through 2009--so he fares a bit better.  Though I'm still wondering why PolitiFact does the comparison between years 2000 and 2006 while calling it the comparison between 2001 and 2006 (we won't see the same error when it comes to Claim B).

PolitiFact explains:

Back in 2009, we rated Rockefeller's claim Half True, noting that if he had carried the data forward to 2008 — an admittedly somewhat atypical year — the increase fell short of his stated quadrupling. But Van Hollen had a clearer reason to set the parameters between 2000 and 2006. Democrats regained control of the House in 2007. So it's fair for him to stop short of the 2008 figures.

If we're just verifying the numbers then the "clearer reason" that PolitiFact uses to rate Van Hollen higher than Rockefeller is irrelevant.  Apparently the underlying point has something to do with Democrats regaining control of the House in 2007.  Unfortunately, that doesn't entirely jibe with what Van Hollen said.

Grading PolitiFact: Eric Cantor and "job-killing" ObamaCare

PolitiFact has placed considerable recent focus on claims surrounding the health care reform bill and the repeal proposal.

The issue:

The fact checkers:

Robert Farley:  writer, researcher
Angie Drobnic Holan:  writer, researcher
Louis Jacobson:  researcher
Bill Adair:  editor


Analysis:

PolitiFact has a problem with standards.  Specifically, the grading system lacks specifics to the point where fact checking may be made to appear to fit the "Truth-O-Meter" grading system when the grade is truly the result of subjective opinion.  This example will serve nicely to illustrate.

We've read a number of critiques that say the law isn't quite the "job killer" that Republicans claim it is, so we wanted to investigate for ourselves and evaluate the evidence. The Republican leadership recently published a document titled, "Obamacare: A budget-busting, job-killing health care law," which cites several pieces of evidence for its job-killing claim:

"Independent analyses have determined that the health care law will cause significant job losses for the U.S. economy: the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has determined that the law will reduce the 'amount of labor used in the economy by … roughly half a percent...,' an estimate that adds up to roughly 650,000 jobs lost. A study by the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB), the nation's largest small business association, found that an employer mandate alone could lead to the elimination of 1.6 million jobs, with 66 percent of those coming from small businesses."
(yellow highlights added)

That's two studies and about four numbers.  Do the four numbers make up the "several pieces of evidence" PolitiFact mentions?

The story points out a real problem with the estimate of 650,000 jobs lost.  Reducing the amount of labor affects the labor supply.  Job availability has to do with the demand for labor.  The GOP is misusing that piece of evidence.  On the other hand, the reasons behind the drop in the labor supply may well have job-killing effects.

The GOP's use of the NFIB study likewise has problems accurately sussed out by the PolitiFact team.  The study used assumptions that do not accurately reflect the content of the health care reform bill the GOP wants to repeal.  Again, however, there's an untold part of the story.  PolitiFact pulled the same trick when it graded an Obama claim that he had provided a tax cut for 95 percent of working Americans.  The fact checkers used a study produced before Obama was even elected and ignored a later study that used more appropriate numbers.

In the case of the NFIB study, the GOP's misapplication of the data exaggerate the degree of job loss.  But the exaggeration does not eradicate the threat of job loss.

So far the story has us sailing along without much of a rudder. What specific claim has PolitiFact set out to check?  If the bill "isn't quite the 'job killer' that Republicans claim it is" then are we on course for "Half True"?

In evaluating this statement, we should reiterate that the health care law is a complicated piece of legislation. Large employers who do not currently offer insurance or who offer limited coverage will see greater costs under the bill, either because they will have to buy their employees new or additional coverage or they get hit with fines.


We asked Cantor's office about whether the bill was "job-killing." A spokesman insisted that it was, pointing to individual business owners who said they would face increased costs under health care. He also pointed us to a letter organized from the American Action Network, a conservative think tank. The letter, signed by 200 economists, said, "The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act contains expensive mandates and penalties that create major barriers to stronger job growth. The mandates will compete for the scarce business resources used for hiring and firm expansion."

We're still tacking back and forth.  It appears from the story that we have evidence the health care reform bill will kill at least some jobs.  But what's the destination?  The next three paragraphs do little to clear things up.  PolitiFact admits the bill will "cost some employers money, particularly large ones."  The CBO says low-wage workers will feel that pinch the most.  And the effect will be "somewhat limited," whatever that's supposed to mean.  Beyond that, PolitiFact uselessly points out that the legislation does not go into effect until 2014, and trots out the perhaps illusory silver lining that improved employee health might improve economic productivity nationally.

Where is this headed?  PolitiFact will tell you where it's headed:

Republicans have used the "job-killing" claim hundreds of times -- so often that they used the phrase in the name of the bill. It implies that job losses will be one of the most significant effects of the law. But they have flimsy evidence to back it up.

The phrase suggests a massive decline in employment, but the data doesn't support that. The Republican evidence is extrapolated from a report that was talking about a reduction in the labor supply rather than the loss of jobs, or based on measures that weren't included in the final health care law. We rate the statement False.

I've written many times about the importance of charitable interpretation and its role in fact checking.  I've written about it many times because PolitiFact exhibits a severe problem in applying the principle.

By emphasizing an uncharitable intepretation of the Republican claim ("suggests a massive decline in unemployment"), PolitiFact creates a loophole in its grading system.  The fact checkers have provided an out so that they need not consider that job losses below an unspecified minimum would make the Republican claim "Barely True," "Half True," "Mostly True" or even "True."  Instead, PolitiFact can conveniently judge that the unspecified standard was not met and quickly conclude that the claim was "False" or worse.  The middle ground in PolitiFact's grading system is thus eliminated in certain select instances.

This fact check of Cantor represents another of those instances.

As bad as that is, PolitiFact is guilty of another malfeasance.  Remember those "several" evidences and the four numbers?  It turns out that the Republican position paper did contain several evidences, one of which surfaced later in the story when Cantor's office responded to PolitiFact's inquiries.

For example:

Experts at the Congressional Research Service (CRS) expect this as well, stating in a paper on “Health Reform and Small Business” that “economic theory suggests the penalty should ultimately be passed through [as] lower wages [to an employee]. If firms cannot pass on the cost in lower wages, the higher cost of workers may lead firms to reduce output and the number of workers.” CRS estimates that about one in five employees work for a business that could be negatively impacted by the new employer penalty.”

Where does PolitiFact get off telling its readers that "the evidence falls short" while at the same it cherry-picks the evidence and ignores the rest including a bit that crept into the story anyway (the letter from 200 economists)?

Shenanigans.


The grades:

Robert Farley:  F
Angie Drobnic Holan:  F
Louis Jacobson:  F
Bill Adair:  F

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."

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.

Grading PolitiFact: Dan Coats and Medicare creep

The issue:

The fact checkers:

Angie Drobnic Holan:  writer, researcher
Bill Adair:  editor


Analysis:

This item caught my eye because the claim from Republican senate candidate Dan Coats seems rather innocuous.  What would PolitiFact check, I wondered?  The use of "force" to get seniors to accept the ObamaCare version of their health care?  The "government-run" aspect of health care reform?  Either option seemed a bit like nailing Jell-O to the wall, yet PolitiFact had the flames of untruth burning in the nearby "Truth-O-Meter" graphic ("Pants On Fire").