Saturday, July 8, 2017

PolitiFact California: Watching Democrats like a hawk

Is PolitiFact California's Chris Nichols the worst fact checker of all time? His body of evidence continues to grow, thanks to this port-tilted gem from July 7, 2017 (bold emphasis added):
We started with a bold claim by Sen. Harris that the GOP plan "effectively will end Medicaid."

Harris said she based that claim on estimates from the Congressional Budget Office. It projects the Senate bill would cut $772 billion dollars in funding to Medicaid over 10 years. But the CBO score didn’t predict the wholesale demise of Medicaid. Rather, it estimated that the program would operate at a significantly lower budget than if President Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA) were to remain in place.

Yearly federal spending on Medicaid would decrease about 26 percent by 2026 as a result of cuts to the program, according to the CBO analysis. At the request of Senate Democrats, the CBO made another somewhat more tentative estimate that Medicaid spending could be cut 35 percent in two decades.

Harris’ statement could be construed as saying Medicaid, as it now exists, would essentially end.
You think?

How else could it be construed, Chris Nichols? Inquiring minds want to know!

PolitiFact California declined to pass judgment on the California Democrats who made the claim about the effective end of Medicaid.



Afters:

"Wouldn't end the program for good"? So the cuts just temporarily end the program?

Or have we misconstrued Nichols' meaning?

2 comments:

  1. But... they said that Harris's statement could be construed as saying that Medicaid could cease to exist... so what, exactly, is your problem with this?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Me wrote:

      **But... they said that Harris's statement could be construed as saying that Medicaid could cease to exist... so what, exactly, is your problem with this?**

      At the risk of repeating myself, how else could one construe Harris' statement?

      Delete

Thanks to commenters who refuse to honor various requests from the blog administrators, all comments are now moderated. Pseudonymous commenters who do not choose distinctive pseudonyms will not be published, period. No "Anonymous." No "Unknown." Etc.