More lies from left and right!

Some of the more ludicrous “Pants on Fire “ statements from left and right!

All these statements were made by the indicated person or source. It is likely that many of the mindless recipients believed these lies without validating the source or the material, especially if they were promulgated by a major news service (like “Faux News”). All of these have been fact checked by Politifact and rated as “Pants on Fire”, (as in Liar, Liar, etc).

If you have ever perpetuated one of these baseless canards, take yourself out and kick your own ass!

1.    Rhode Island "didn't ratify the 13th Amendment to the Constitution to pay federal income taxes. So Rhode Island doesn't even have to pay federal income taxes."   R.I. State Representative Charlene Lima (Democrat)  - wrong amendment, wrong interpretation, just plain wrong!

 

2.    "Soldiers Donating to Tea Party Now Face Punishment Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice."   Rhode Island Tea Party – Clearly wrong, also issued by Faux News, wrong then, too!

 

3.    Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev is buried "not far" from President Kennedy’s grave. -John DePetro – Ultra conservative talk show host and liar extraordinaire. -  Close?? How about 74 miles away?

                                

4.    "Religious groups like Knights of Columbus have been forced to allow same-sex marriage ceremonies in their facilities, against their beliefs." - National Organization for Marriage – No.  Simply no. Never happened, not gonna  (probably, unless two nice Catholic boys get permission.)

5.    "Switzerland (where the government) issues every household a gun . . . has the lowest gun related crime rate of any civilized country in the world!!!"  - Several NRA related sources in various media.- Switzerland’s gun violence rate  among “civilized” nations is actually exceeded only by Ireland, Greece and the US ! Who knew those Swiss could be so aggressive?  Must be the caffeine in the chocolate.

 

6.    “While CEOs of some large charities have big salaries, the heads of some veterans groups do the job for free.” – a “perpetually forwarded in ignorance” e-mail. – in fact, it’s simply false:

Organization	Top compensation	Fundraising and administration costs
		E-mail says	Actual	E-mail says		Actual
American Legion		$0	$206,661	--		45%
Disabled American Veterans		$0	$328,252	--		30%
Veterans of Foreign Wars of the U.S.		$0	$239,534	--		36%
Military Order of the Purple Heart		$0	$150,626	--		63%
Vietnam Veterans of America		$0	$137,902	--		33%
American Red Cross		$651,957	$1,032,022	--		8%
United Way Worldwide		$375,000	$864,875	--		11%
Salvation Army		$13,000+	$126,920	4%		15%
U.S. Fund for UNICEF		$1.2 million	$472,891	over 95%		17%

 

Especially troubling is that the highest fundraising and salary cost percentage of any of these organizations is the Vietnam Veterans of America. Although VVA reported only 33% of donations went to “fundraising and admin” the BBB determined the figure in 2009 was actually 75%! Of the “veterans groups” listed, only the Disabled American Veterans organization met the better business Bureau’s 20 criteria for certification. Both the VVA and American Legion met less than half of the BBB criteria. Now – where do you want to donate? Salvation Army, Red Cross, United Way, and Unicef  Fund  meet all BBB criteria!

 

7.    Woonsocket needs a garbage-burning power plant because "residents are paying through the nose for electricity that’s fueled by foreign oil, at prices that are skyrocketing." – Rhode Island State Rep. Jon D. Brien, D-Woonsocket. We love to use the words “foreign oil” don’t we? Unfortunately there are two thiongs wrong here. First, RI already has a ;power plant that burns waste, secondly, all other RI power plants burn(domestic) natural gas or (domestic) coal!

 

Apparently you really can, as these stories show, simply make this s**t up, and some people will believe it. Next time you get one of those “unbelieveable” e-mails,  either trash it or check it.

the Politifact X files!

Because I have this kind of time, and because I like facts vs fiction or unfounded   statements of  opinion, I decided to review the entire fact checking history of my favorite conservative political fact checker – Politifact.

What I found was not surprising in absolute result, but the magnitude of the data skew was surprising.  One might expect a self proclaimed conservative fact checking service which has a stated goal of “keeping  track” of the veracity of the Obama administration, as well as general politics, to be perhaps a bit right leaning. I use this service because that is so not the case.

Since 2007 until last week, Politifact has rated (by my count) 245 statements as “Pants on Fire,” which means bald faced lies, as in the children’s chant of “liar, liar, pants on fire”. Far more (thousands) have been  rated “false”, “mostly false”, “mostly true”, and “true.”  A  rating of   “Pants on Fire”  generally is awarded to those statements which are blatant lies, which the  originator knew  was a lie, but told it anyway.

The queen of this category, hands down,  is Michelle Bachmann, with Mitt Romney a relatively close third. Between them is the “unattributed or substantiated e-mail” category. Ms. Bachmann has had an even 60 statements rated  by Politifact. Of these, 5 were “true” and of these three were slurs against Newt Gingrich of her own party! A whopping 37 were rated “false” [21] or “pants on fire” [16].  Now there’s a record to be proud of .

To recap: In total, Politifact over the period of its existence has rated 245 statements as “Pants on Fire.” 26 of these were attributed to Democrats or “liberal” sources. 2 were of a nature that was relatively apolitical, and a walloping 217 to Republicans or Conservative sources. If I were a data analyst, I might draw the conclusion that Republicans were more than 8 times as likely to intentionally lie to further their political interests!    Obviously, this is a small sampling, but the fact that it has been produced by an admittedly conservative news service is striking.

So, my friends, Conservatives and  Liberals alike, before you click  “send or “forward” on that e-mail rant you received from your fanatic friend, check it out. In the words of Mulder and Scully “The truth is out there.”  If the statement is from a Tea Bagger, there’s a good chance it’s a lie.  

How can we tell Marco Rubio is a liar? He's talking!

    Another conservative truth telling organization which finds Rubio to be disingenuous; This is Politifact responding to……well – you read it. It a truly wondrous thing to watch the Tea Party rats jumping ship now that their ploy failed and most Americans blame them for the recent government shutdown. Rubio disavowing his nine “hell no” votes in favor of the last one, cast under the duress of increasing public disfavor, is as phony as Heinrich Himmler disavowing responsibility for the Holocaust!   

Was Rubio 'never ... in favor of shutting down the government'?

"I never was in favor of shutting down the government. … (I) voted to fund the government fully."  (Marco Rubio, Sunday, October 20th, 2013. )

Ruling: Mostly False | Details

On "Fox News Sunday," (there’s a surprise – a closet Tea Bagger on Faux  News) Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said, “I never was in favor of shutting down the government."   Is that correct?

 Politifact’s response:

Federal employees are now back at work, but the battle over who to blame for the government shutdown goes on. On “Fox News Sunday”, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., emphasized that he didn’t favor a government shutdown even though many observers have accused his party of instigating the shutdown as a way of defunding or delaying President Barack Obama’s health care law.

We looked at whether Rubio was right when he said on Fox News Sunday that "I never was in favor of shutting down the government. … (I) voted to fund the government fully."

We found these claims problematic.

His claim that "I never was in favor of shutting down the government" is undercut by two separate comments in which he supported a strategy of opposing Obamacare even if that meant rejecting a bill that would have kept the government open. And on the question of whether he "voted to fund the government fully," he arguably may have done so once, but took the opposite position nine times.

 We (Politifact) rated his claim Mostly False.

Sean Hannity is incapable of telling the truth.

I have frequently cast aspersions as to the veracity of Faux (Fox) News as an organization. I have also nominated Sean Hannity as the "worst person in the world." Nominations are closed. Hannity has topped even himself, and Faux bears the blame and the shame as well. I have noted many times the propensity of the far right for saying things which they know to be untrue in hopes that their viewers are simply too ignorant or too indoctrinated to think critically. None of what I have written holds a candle to the content of this article. Whether you love the ACA or hate it, READ THIS! 

 

http://www.salon.com/2013/10/18/inside_the_fox_news_lie_machine_i_fact_checked_sean_hannity_on_obamacare/

 

This man is simply a moral wasteland!

Red Fish, Blue fish - Black Fish - bullshit!

Regarding Sea World finally going on the record in refutation of the scurrilous "Mocumentary" - "Black Fish":

      It's about damned time! Like PETA, Earth First, and the other animal rights fanatics who are "born again" in the sense that they have apparently come to an epiphany regarding that about which they really know very little and would, in the extreme like PETA, rather kill animals... than have them taken care of by humans, this is a seriously flawed "Mockumentary."

 

      It is the product of the same approach as "Creation Science" in that the film makers began with their conclusions and reverse engineered everything else, disavowing what refutes their position and skewing the rest. This is essentially a “Swift Boat” job, not journalistic film making. (Yes, I’ve watched and then deleted it, lest it infect my computer!)

     Of course a major gross inaccuracy is that the blame for Tillikum’s behavior is leveled at Sea World, who had no hand in his 1983 capture off Iceland at around three years of age, and was actually his third “owner’ after he had been maltreated elsewhere and was essentially unreturnable to the ocean. Would PETA have SEA World sell him for dog food? Does this make him fundamentally different from the host of captive born Orcas in marine parks around the world? Of course it does.

    Although PETA is not responsible for the film, you can bet they will support it and embrace it as if they had financed it. Of course they (PETA) couldn’t afford to finance it because so much of their annual income, which they allege is used for the protection of animals, actually is used by them in their role of publicity damage control after they have spent what they use for killing dogs and cats!

“The organization reportedly destroyed almost 90% of all the animals dropped off at its headquarters in Norfolk, Va., in 2012, according to the Daily Mail.” Over a span of the last 14 years, PETA has killed more than 29,000 animals. So what’s another Orca or two?

Another "Inconvenient Truth"

     In addition to the $24 billion hit to the US economy caused by the unnecessary and avoidable government shutdown, there was a less publicized, but as significant or even more significant aftershock, this also caused by the “Pro-Business” (really??) Republicans, who went along with the Tea Baggers in causing it.     

     Get this straight – the party which has typically seen itself and styled itself as a friend to business and industrial interests  acted diametrically against those interests and the results were not just immediate and transitory. Politifact (Conservative Tampa fact checker and typically no friend to President Obama) posted this a day or so ago. I re-post it here because it is significant :  

" ‘Half of all CEOs say that the shutdown and the threat of shutdown set back their plans to hire over the next six months,’ said  Barack Obama on Thursday, October 17th, 2013 in a public address.

     After a Senate deal brought the 16-day government shutdown to a close, President Barack Obama wanted to make sure the impact of narrowly avoiding a default wasn’t lost on the nation.

‘These last few weeks have inflicted completely unnecessary damage on our economy,’ he said in a public address Thursday. As proof, he offered up specific claims including, ‘Half of all CEOs say that the shutdown and the threat of shutdown set back their plans to hire over the next six months.’

PolitiFact wanted to know whether Obama’s CEO statistic was accurate. The White House pointed us to a recent Business Roundtable survey.

‘Fifty percent of responding CEOs indicated that the ongoing disagreement in Washington over the 2014 budget and the debt ceiling is having a negative impact on their plans for hiring additional employees over the next six months,’ the report reads.

    That’s in line with what Obama said, but we wanted to see how Business Roundtable acquired their results. They would not disclose their exact question wording to us. Their report notes, ‘Responses were received from 134 member CEOs, 63 percent of the total Business Roundtable membership.’

     Since Obama often speaks to the Business Roundtable, we wanted to see what his relationship with the group was like. University of Kansas political science professor Burdett Loomis, who specializes in lobbying, said there’s not much of a connection.

     ‘Many of them have long-term relationships with government (simply because of their size and the government’s size), but probably only a handful have any kind of even semi-close relationship with Obama,’ he said.

We ran the poll results by another business group, the National Federation of Independent Businesses. Senior policy analyst Holly Wade said she saw a similar sentiment among the smaller business owners that the federation represents.

     ‘In September, there were more small business owners that were feeling pessimistic about business conditions six months out,’ she said. There wasn’t much opinion voiced about delaying employment specifically, though. But Wade said that could be because small businesses were already hiring less during the economic recovery compared to bigger corporations.

     Why would CEOs want to delay hiring? With another possible debt ceiling default looming Feb. 7, University of Maryland finance professor David Kass said it’s likely that a budget deal will lead to tighter fiscal policy, which would slow down the economy and cause CEOs to put off hiring decisions for a few months.

     Another factor that would contribute to CEO anxiety is consumer behavior. While day-to-day spending probably won’t change post-shutdown, consumers will likely postpone higher ticket purchases, like homes and cars. ‘On the demand side, there’s uncertainty on the consumers’ part, which in turn will have an impact on CEOs,’ Kass said. ‘They’re trying to predict their future sales and what the environment will look like. It’s a lose-lose situation for everyone.’

In any case, the President  is trying to communicate that the shutdown had a significant financial impact on the nation, and he’s not wrong there. Independent forecasts agree that the shutdown was a setback for the U.S. economy, though they differ on exact figures.

Our ruling

Obama said 50 percent of CEOs are delaying hiring due to the shutdown, which accurately cites the results of a poll sponsored by the Business Roundtable. The survey’s limited sampling, though,  means the responses aren’t necessarily representative of all U.S. businesses. But the idea that the shutdown affects how businesses think about hiring is even more broadly applicable. Experts said it’s reasonable that CEOs would be hesitant to hire, given that uncertainty about government fiscal policy can affect consumer confidence. We rate Obama's claim Mostly True”

Final note – “mostly True” instead of totally true only because the President’s statements were based on a single survey, no matter how reliable. It is worthy of note that other sources contacted by the Conservative fact checkers confirmed the validity of those statements!  And Cruz and Boehner claim to have our interests at heart?

Apparently anyone CAN "Make this S**t Up"

 I have had intelligent persons, well known to me,  spout almost every false statement in this bogus e-mail as if it were fact. I have written on this topic previously, but the lie won’t die, so here’s the nutshell version rated Pants on Fire from Politifact and every other fact checker  in the world!

"Chain email on Tuesday, October 15th, 2013 in an email and social media posts says “Nancy Pelosi will earn “$803,700 Dollars a year for LIFE including FREE medical”

(My editorial input: notice that even though the recent shutdown was the direct fault of the Tea Bagger portion of the Republican Mob (it’s in too severe a state of disarray to refer to as a Party, at present), the slur and focus of this diametrically incorrect statement is Nancy Pelosi, who isn’t even Speaker of the house. Understand the idiocy involved here.  You’re angry that the Government is shutdown (OK). You blame Congress (not OK, since one sect/cult/lunatic element of one party in one chamber is responsible). You, however,  target a member of the other party ( Not OK, but it does reveal the true affiliation of the liar!)

Okay, people, let’s chat from the heart for a second.

Congressional approval ratings nearing single digits and government shutdowns do not make viral rants about lawmakers’ pay any more true.

If your in-box claims to share shocking truths in ALL-CAPS underlined exclamations!! — take your hand off the mouse button. Do not click Forward. Unless, of course, it’s to your favorite fact-checkers. Take this recent example sent by one of you to Politifact. 

“Subject: Obscene Salaries - Pass this on if you believe this is all wrong

Salary of retired US Presidents .$180,000 FOR LIFE

Salary of House/Senate....$174,000 FOR LIFE   This  is  stupid

Salary of Speaker of the House ....$223,500 FOR  LIFE!  This is  really stupid

Salary of Majority/Minority Leader $193,400 FOR   LIFE        Ditto last  line

Average Salary of a teacher .. $40,065

Average Salary of Soldier DEPLOYED IN  AFGHANISTAN .. $38,000 Think about  this.

Nancy Pelosi will retire as a Congress Person at $174,000 Dollars a year  for LIFE.    She has retired  as SPEAKER at $223,500 a year.

PLUS she will  receive an additional $193,400 a year as Minority Leader. That's  $803,700 Dollars a  year for LIFE including FREE  medical which is  not available to us ...   the  taxpayers.

She is  just one of the hundreds of Senators and Congress that float in and  out every year!

I think we  found where the cuts should be made!

If you  agree ..... pass it on, I just did”   

(Me again: Yes, I’m sure you did, thereby proving that you are too stupid to be permitted  to procreate!)

                                 Politifact’s response:  

“In honor of Congress’ second-worst approval rating in Gallup history, let’s keep this simple: Do congressional lawmakers earn their salaries "FOR LIFE? Would House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi get "$803,700 Dollars a year for LIFE including FREE medical"? No. And really, really, really, no.

We’ll break it down.

Do congressional lawmakers earn their salaries "FOR LIFE? 

(NO! And it isn't even close).

Let’s turn to the nonpartisan research arm of Congress, the Congressional Research Service, which explains laws so even lawmakers can understand them.

• Members of Congress earn their $174,000 salaries only during their elected terms. (Nope, not for life.)

• They’re eligible for congressional pensions only after five years of service. (For a member of the House, that would mean getting elected to office at least three times.)

Those pensions can’t be tapped until retirement age — and can’t be collected while a lawmaker still gets a federal salary. So John Kerry, for example, can’t collect his congressional pension while he serves as secretary of state, according to Pete Sepp of the National Taxpayers Union.

• The size of the pension depends on years of service and the average of a lawmaker’s highest three years of salary. The exact formula depends on when they started. Meanwhile, every paycheck, lawmakers contribute to both their pensions and Social Security. (My note, even the Military contributes to Social Security, but not to their pensions)

• Most congressional pensions are nowhere near a lawmaker’s salary. Under a pre-1984 retirement formula, it couldn’t be more than 80 percent of a lawmaker’s final salary, not counting cost-of-living adjustments. Under current rules, lawmakers could theoretically get more than 80 percent of their salary, but most would need to serve more than 66 years to get that.

Would House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi get "$803,700 Dollars a year for LIFE including FREE medical"?

The email writer gets a whole host of things wrong here.

The message claims Pelosi will retire as a member of Congress making $174,000 — and that she’ll earn it annually, for life, on top of her full speaker’s salary of $223,500 and minority leader’s salary of $193,400, for a whopping "$803,700 Dollars a year for LIFE including FREE medical." - Nope!

Congressional leaders do get paid more than other lawmakers. The speaker of the House earns $223,500. The House minority leader earns $193,400. That’s more than the $174,000 earned by the rank and file. But those are annual salaries that leaders earn while they hold their titles, not lifetime guarantees that get stacked on top of one another.

• First, even if her pension did equal all three salaries, they add up to $590,900, not $803,700. (Unless perhaps the writer’s suggesting the "free medical" is worth $212,800 a year. Talk about rising health care costs!)

• Second, that’s not how it works. See above.

• Third, lawmakers don’t get "free medical." They pay a portion of their health insurance premiums, co-pays and co-insurance and can face a deductible, just like a lot of workers with employer-based health care. In January, their employer-offered health insurance will be a choice of plans offered on Obamacare’s federal exchange.

Pelosi’s higher salary as House speaker from 2007-11 will boost her pension. But the congresswoman, who’s been in office since 1987, would have to work at least two more decades for her starting pension to match a regular lawmaker’s pay, much less $803,700. Not likely, since She’s 73.

And, oh, by the way, lawmakers haven’t given themselves a pay raise since January 2009.

We’re not saying they’re earning their keep.

But perhaps it’ll make you feel slightly better that their salaries this year hit their lowest inflation-adjusted levels since December 1990. And that more than 200 of them were refusing pay while the government was closed.

Our ruling:

A viral message claims congressional lawmakers earn their salaries "FOR LIFE," which for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi would add up to "$803,700 Dollars a year for LIFE including FREE medical."

Lawmakers don’t earn a salary after their terms end. They may earn pensions based on years of service, but those don’t start until retirement. They don’t get "free medical."

 

It might feel good to click "Forward", But it wouldn’t make this claim any less Pants on Fire."

And Another one Makes the List!

 

Add another Tea Party liar to the Palin-Perry-Bachmann list!

This from Politifact - the conservative fact checker, whom I applaud for being truthful even when it hurts!

     "On the last morning of the government shutdown and debt ceiling standoff, the conservative lawmakers who took the hardest line in the showdown stood firm even as they faced defeat. One of them, Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-S.C., said it was all worthwhile given the principle at stake. (my thoughts here: This imbecile thinks a $24 billion [by CBO estimates] showboat tactic which shut down the government was "worth it" in support of a lie?)

Asked on CBS News what that principle was, Mulvaney said it was about fairness under Obamacare.

"Our question, for the last three weeks, has been, ‘Why is it not evenly applied across all the citizens?’ " Mulvaney said. The president, he said, "has given 1,100 special waivers to his friends. Now he gave it most recently to large corporations. All we have been asking for the last two and a half weeks is that those same exemptions apply to our families."

(me again: That statement begs further analysis! When was the last time, if ever, that you heard a Congressman or anyone else refer to the President as a "friend" to large corporations? Me neither. The companies in question, some of which are large, tend to be those, such as fast food vendors,  who employee lower end wage earners, so the "what about our families" whine is false as stated because the companies granted the waivers were granted them to avoid having lower wage earning families lose their insurance, and the waiver has a shelf life of as of today. 76 days!)  


Here, we’ll examine whether President Barack Obama "has given 1,100 special waivers to his friends."

This is a claim that Mulvaney’s political allies have made several times. Groups such as the Christian Coalition have circulated it, although the exact number sometimes varies. Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, said "almost 1,100 waivers." Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., said it was over 1,200. We reached out to Mulvaney’s office to get the details but didn’t hear back.

Our research took us (as well as our fact checking colleagues at the Washington Post) to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The waivers in question have to do with private insurance plans that cost very little but cap the total amount they will pay at less than $1.25 million in a single year. The limits can be considerably less. There are plans that don’t pay more than $2,000 and even one that stops at $300.

That threshold matters because one big thing the Affordable Care Act does is set minimum standards for health insurance -- including the elimination of annual caps by 2014. The law says there can be no limits, but it left it to the Secretary of Health and Human Services to set rules for how to transition to that goal. Those rules said that as of 2011, every plan had to pay at least $1.25 million, and as of 2014, with very few exceptions, there could be no annual limits at all.

But even putting the transition on a glide path created a potential dilemma, especially for large firms that hire many low-wage workers. Faced with having to improve their coverage quickly, there was a chance that many employers would instead drop the insurance altogether. To avoid leaving those workers with no insurance at all, HHS set up a way for companies and insurance plans to apply for waivers. (ed: Those bastards!)

Who got a waiver?

(My note here: in typical fashion, the Tea Baggers take a reasonable idea out of context, inflate the political significance, if any, beyond all reason and make it personal, aimed at the President. Notice, that even though over half of the members of both houses of Congress voted to enact this law, it’s all the fault of the President, and his “friends.” This is frequently a code word for minority/person of color, etc.  Read the next paragraphs closely to 1) learn something about the ACA and 2) confirm your worst opinions regarding the ability of the far right to tell the truth.)

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services tallies who has been granted a waiver, and who applied but was denied. At last count, the total number of waivers was 1,231. So Mulvaney’s has actually undercounted somewhat.
However, his use of the term "friends" is more questionable. Here is a sample of some of the recipients: Baptist Retirement Homes of North Carolina, (me again: Really? “Southern Baptists for Obama?” I  doubt it.) Pepsi,  The Wyoming Lodging and Restaurant Association, Goodwill Industries of Kentucky, Wendy’s, McDonald’s.
The common denominator seems to be who these firms hire -- low-wage workers. If "friendship" played a role, it’s hard to discern. And it’s not clear that these are major political allies of the president, either.

On the other hand, some unions -- which usually lean Democratic -- were on the list as well. We found about 450 plans that serve union workers -- roughly a third of the total.

HOWEVER!

That having been said,, 144 groups were denied a waiver, and union plans were included on that list as well. Plans could reapply and some did. In general, if a plan reapplied, it then got a waiver. Unions show up a lot in this group, but some ultimately were turned down.

We should also note that Mulvaney called these "special waivers." But by and large, whoever applied tended to get approved. That doesn’t seem particularly special to us.

(me again: note the next sentence, which means that any “special deals were temporary at best to give businesses time to get into compliance, even if they were special, which they aren’t) All of these waivers expire as of Jan. 1, 2014.

Our ruling:

Mulvaney said that under Obamacare, the president "has given 1,100 special waivers to his friends."

He’s close on the number, but it’s wrong to say that all (or even most) went to his "friends" or political allies. It’s also doubtful that any of these were "special," since the option was widely publicized and mostly granted when applied for.

We rate the claim Mostly False."  

My last word: The only thing that keeps this from a "pants on Fire "  rating is that the number of waivers is close, evrything else is a lie.




 

No Cruz control - the lies continue

Another analysis by conservative Politifact re: Ted Cruz

Sen. Ted Cruz says premiums have gone 'up and up and up' for 'virtually every person'

A few hours before the Senate voted to end a 16-day government shutdown and raise the debt ceiling, the lawmaker who played a leading role in precipitating the crisis, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, spoke to reporters. Cruz’s mission had been to defund President Barack Obama’s health care law and, as he has from the start, Cruz listed the failings of the health care program.

"President Obama promised the American people Obamacare would lower your health insurance premiums," Cruz said. "I would venture to say virtually every person across this country has seen exactly the opposite happen, has seen premiums going up and up and up."

We received many requests to check this statement and so we’ll examine whether Obamacare meant that "virtually every person across this country ... has seen premiums going up and up and up."

Not for the entire insurance market

The new health care law takes a private market system and gives it an overlay of government rules. The private market has two major sectors -- the group market and the non-group, often called the individual market.

About 60 percent of Americans under the age of 65 get their insurance through their employers.That’s the group market, where insurance companies write policies that cover a lot of workers all at once.

One critic of the new law, Robert Laszewski, a health insurance consultant and head of Health Policy and Strategy Associates, says the new health care law has had little impact on people who currently get their insurance through their work.

 

"In the large employer market where most under-65 folks are, the Obamacare increase is a very few percentage points, like 2 points," Laszewski said.  Other experts we talked to echoed that point, without necessarily agreeing to Laszewski’s specific estimate of a 2 percent increase.

The former head of Medicare and Medicaid under President George W. Bush, Gail Wilensky, noted the health reform law has touched group coverage in certain ways, such as allowing children to stay on their parents' plan.

"Some portion — albeit probably a very small portion — of all premiums probably have gone up as a result of these requirements," Wilensky said. (my note here: and that is because more persons are on the policy!)

 

So Cruz’s claim about what "virtually every person" has seen runs up against the realities of the marketplace. About two-thirds of Americans buy their insurance in the part of the market where Obamacare has had the least effect.

Evidence of premium hikes

Where Obamacare has been most active is on the individual side, which accounts for less than 10 percent of Americans with insurance. The health insurance marketplaces that opened with fits and starts this month are all about people buying coverage on their own.

 

Obamacare requires most everyone to have insurance, says no one can be denied coverage for a pre-existing health problem and sets minimum standards for the services that policies must cover. It also offers subsidies to defray the cost of insurance for many people.

For some, those changes can translate into higher premiums.

From the earliest days of the debate over Obamacare, there has been general agreement that young people in the individual market would see the largest hit on their wallets. If they never had insurance, they would now need to pay for it. If they did have individual coverage, it would be more expensive.

This is just one study from a group that advocates conservative policies. Analysts at the Kaiser Family Foundation, an independent group that enjoys broad credibility, have declined to compare rates before and after Obamacare on the grounds that good data is lacking. They said we don’t know what people in the individual market pay today and we don’t know what they will choose in the Marketplaces.

However, the general idea that young people will pay more comes as no surprise to Sabrina Corlette, program director for the Center on Health Insurance Reforms at Georgetown University.

"Young, healthy individuals who buy coverage on their own might see their rates rise, because they'll now be pooled with older sicker individuals," Corelette said. "But remember, these folks' premiums pre-ACA were kept low because plans were able to deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. We're now moving to a system that doesn't discriminate and that means that yes, some people might have to pay more."

 

Also, there are early signs that some people who already buy on the individual market are vulnerable to the minimum coverage requirements under Obamacare. If their plans fell below that standard, some of them would get letters from their insurance companies telling them that higher premiums are in store.

Another important note is that health care premiums generally have been rising for years, regardless of the health care law.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the average family premium for employer-sponsored plans rose by an average of 5.8 percent per year from 2008 to 2013. Before that, premiums actually were rising faster. From 1999 to 2008, premiums rose by an average of 13.2 percent a year, Kaiser found.  (Obama was a Senator, Bush was President! No one blamed “W”)

Our ruling

Cruz said Obamacare has led to premiums going up and up and up for virtually every person. Cruz was most inaccurate when he spoke sweepingly about most Americans. The fact is, the majority of Americans already have insurance and Obamacare has had little impact on their premiums.

The people first in line to see the law’s effects are in the individual market. There, it is true that young adults, along with some older adults, are vulnerable to hefty premiums hikes, but as painful as that might be, their numbers hardly amount to "virtually every person."

One final point: Cruz's comments don't take into account the many people who will get subsidies as they shop on the health care marketplaces. People making less than 400 percent of the poverty level will be eligible for subsidies. If these people have been able to afford to buy their own insurance before the law, then they should see substantial decreases in their premiums thanks to the new regulations and subsidies. And what is “400% of the poverty level? – by my calculations, around  $44 -45K annually for a single person.

 Cruz is using inflated rhetoric. We rate his claim False.