Does PolitiFact use consistent standards? No.

PolitiFact misleads when it tells its readers "we are applying the same standards to both sides." PolitiFact's methodology leaves open myriad ways to put fingers on the scale. The scale has fingerprints all over it.

In this article we'll focus on yet another example of uneven application of standards. We'll look at two PolitiFact fact checks in the category of health care, one from a Republican and one from a Democrat.

The Republican

On Nov. 30, 2020 PolitiFact published a fact check of Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) looking at her claim that her healthcare plan would protect Americans with preexisting conditions. PolitiFact issued a "False" judgment on Loeffler's claim.

Why the "False" rating?

PolitiFact's subheading suggested a lack of proof led to the rating: "No proof that Kelly Loeffler will ensure protections for preexisting conditions." 

Aside from the lack of proof, PolitiFact noted that Loeffler's plan proposed using something like high risk pools to help people get their preexisting conditions covered. PolitiFact's "If Your Time is Short" story summary gave Loeffler credit for protections that fall short of those offered by the Affordable Care Act (second bullet):

If Your Time is short

• The GOP Georgia senator’s new plan offers no details on how protections for people with preexisting health conditions would be ensured.

• Two provisions in the plan indicate protections will be less than those provided by the Affordable Care Act, experts say.

 

Why did the protections in Loeffler's plan count for nothing on PolitiFact's "Truth-O-Meter"? The special insurance groups designed for those with preexisting conditions couldn't even budget the rating up to "Mostly False"? Did PolitiFact assume that when Loeffler said "Americans" she meant "all Americans"? If so, that rationale failed to find its way into the fact check.

The Democrat

People these days tend to know (using that term advisedly) that President Obama's "You can keep your plan" pledge received PolitiFact's "Lie of the Year" in 2013. They've tended to forget, with help from PolitiFact, that the claim never received a Truth-O-Meter rating below "Half True." PolitiFact rated Obama's claim twice, in 2009 and in 2012. Both times it received a "Half True" rating. 

We'll use the 2012 rating to see how PolitiFact's application of standards compared to the ones it used for Loeffler.

PolitiFact's summary paragraphs encapsulate its reasoning:

Obama has a reasonable point: His health care law does take pains to allow Americans to keep their health plan if they want to remain on it. But Obama suggests that keeping the insurance you like is guaranteed.

In reality, Americans are not simply able to keep their insurance through thick and thin. Even before the law has taken effect, the rate of forced plan-switching among policyholders every year is substantial, and the CBO figures suggest that the law could increase that rate, at least modestly, even if Americans on balance benefit from the law’s provisions. We rate Obama’s claim Half True.

PolitiFact says Obama has a reasonable point. PolitiFact made no mention in its fact check of Loeffler to detect whether she had a reasonable point that her health care plan offered protections for preexisting conditions. Is that the same standard?

PolitiFact says Obama "suggested" that keeping one's preferred insurance is guaranteed. That might parallel the assumption that Loeffler was saying her plan guarantees coverage for preexisting conditions. PolitiFact's ruling suggests it made that assumption, though the fact check does not say so specifically. But if Obama was similarly making a guarantee, how did he skate with a "Half True" instead of the "False" rating Loeffler's claim received? Is that the same standard?

And speaking of guarantees, remember that PolitiFact docked Loeffler for not having proof that her plain would cover (all?) those with preexisting conditions. What proof did Obama's plan offer? Apparently none, as PolitiFact noted a Congressional Budget Office assessment saying the ACA would accelerate force churn of insurance plans. Is that the same standard?

We say the same standard did not apply to both. If Loeffler's "False" stems from her leading people to falsely believe her plan guarantees coverage for preexisting conditions then Obama's similar misleading would seem to equally earn a "False" rating. Or, both Loeffler and Obama could receive a "Half True" rating.

That they received quite different ratings shows the application of differing standards.

Was Obamacare a government takeover of health care?

An open letter to PolitiFact

Dear PolitiFact,

In 2010 you named your second "Lie of the Year." It was the GOP talking point that the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, represented a government takeover of health care.

The claim received a number of "Pants on Fire" ratings that year. According to PolitiFact's statement of principles, the "Pants on Fire" rating denotes a claim that is false and not merely false but also ridiculous.

The ACA now has the force of law, and some have expressed concern that spiking premium rates may lead to health insurance death spirals. Such death spirals may lead to insurers abandoning some markets and leaving them without an insurer.

The right blames the ACA. The left blames the Trump administration for not administering the law in a way aimed at helping it succeed.

And all of this leads up to my questions for you, PolitiFact.

If the ACA did not result in a government takeover of health care, then why do health insurance markets across the nation now depend on federal executive action for stability?

Would that have proved the case if the ACA (or something like it) had never passed?

Do you see why it's hard to take you seriously?


Sincerely,
PolitiFact Bias


P.S. Yes, we know your commitment to transparency generally doesn't include responding to criticism.

PolitiFact's hypocrisy

PolitiFact manifests many examples of hypocrisy. This post will focus on just one.

On August 21, 2017 Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said American has dozens of counties with zero insurers. Ryan was talking about insurers committed to serving the exchanges that serve individual market customers.

On August 24, 2017, PolitiFact published a fact check rating Ryan's claim "Pants on Fire." PolitiFact noted that Ryan had relied on outdated information to back his claim. PolitiFact said only one county was expected to risk having no insurer, and Ryan should have been aware of it:

Now technically, that report wasn’t published until two days after Ryan spoke. But the government had the information, and a day before Ryan spoke, Politico reported that just one county remained without a potential insurance carrier in 2018. The Kaiser Family Foundation published the same information the day of Ryan’s CNN town hall.

And a week earlier, the government said there were only two counties at risk of having no participating insurer. Ryan was way off no matter what.

Fast forward to Sept. 7, 2017. PolitiFact elects to republicize its fact check of Ryan, reinforcing its message that only one county remains at risk no not having any insurance provider available through the exchange. PolitiFact publicized it on Twitter:

Paul Ryan uses old stat to claim counties will have no Obamacare insurer in 2018. https://t.co/yQbTQnWupg pic.twitter.com/Fhk6kAxiub

— PolitiFact (@PolitiFact) September 7, 2017

And PolitiFact publicized it on Facebook as well.

The problem? On Sept. 6, 2017, the Kaiser Family Foundation updated its information to show 63 counties at risk of having no insurer on the exchange. The information in the story PolitiFact shared was outdated.

Paul Ryan got a "Pants on Fire" for peddling outdated information.

What does PolitiFact get for doing the same thing?

Another Pulitzer Prize?

Universal health plans that aren't

From time to time we remind our readers that only the lack of time keeps us from finding many more examples of PolitiFact's bias and incompetence.

Here's one we missed from 2012, involving then-San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro:

As the captured image shows, Castro said Seven U.S. presidents had tried to expand health care to all Americans. PolitiFact rated the claim "Mostly True," but based on very questionable evidence.

Two U.S. presidents tried to provide health care for all Americans. A few others tried to expand the provision of health care to more Americans. In fact, PolitiFact used something like the latter wording to paraphrase Castro, perhaps reasoning that changing what Castro said would make the evidence stack up better in his favor (bold emphasis added):

President Barack Obama’s health care law has been one of the most polarizing aspects of his presidency, with Republicans criticizing it at every turn. But the keynote speaker at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, didn’t run from it. He applauded Obama for pursuing expanded health care -- and succeeding where his predecessors had failed.

Castro mentioned expanding health care to "all Americans," not the bar-lowering "expanded health care" offered by PolitiFact. By replacing Castro's actual words, PolitiFact avoided the embarrassment of admitting that Castro was wrong when he went on to say Obama succeeded in providing health care to "all Americans." The Affordable Care Act succeeded in growing the number of Americans who have some type of insurance--often Medicaid--but the ACA did not achieve universal coverage.

It takes universal coverage to bring health care to "all Americans."

Fact-checking is great, right?

The Ultimate List of non-Universal Universal Health Care Plans

 

Michael F. Cannon: "Clean Up Your Act, PolitiFact"

Michael F. Cannon, the heath care expert who started a boycott of PolitiFact years ago over its penchant for calling people liars (without proving it), has an article at Forbes showing how PolitiFact flubbed a Jan. 29, 2016 rating of Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz. Cruz called Obamacare the nation's No. 1 job killer and received a "Pants on Fire" rating from PolitiFact.

We can't do better than Cannon in summarizing his article:

In their rush to label Ted Cruz a liar, PolitiFact ignored economic theory, ignored economic consensus, ignored problems with the evidence they had amassed, ignored that some of the evidence they collected supports Cruz, ignored reams of anecdotal evidence, and dismissed Congressional Budget Office projections based on nothing more than a subjective and arbitrary distinction PolitiFact themselves invented.

But the summary's even better accompanied by the details, so please visit Forbes to read the whole thing.

Especially damning is PolitiFact's omission of Congressional Budget Office projections of labor loss as a result of the Affordable Care Act. PolitiFact's fact-check of Cruz does not mention the CBO but links to earlier PolitiFact fact checks dealing with the CBO's projections. Cannon succinctly explains the problem with PolitiFact's spin on the CBO's reports.

Our post just before this one talks about examining whether PolitiFact's corrections benefit Democrats more than Republicans. The other side of that coin whether PolitiFact acts more readily in response to strong criticisms from the left or from the right.

Here's betting PolitiFact will run no correction as a result of Cannon's criticisms. Indeed, we deem it very unlikely that PolitiFact will even publicly note Cannon's criticism.

That's just how PolitiFact rolls.


Afters

We can't resist attaching this howler from PolitiFact's fact check of Cruz.

Did you know the Affordable Care Act is actually a job creator? Read (bold emphasis added):

All of the job numbers have moved in a positive direction since April 2010, the first full month after President Barack Obama signed the bill into law. The unemployment rate has moved steadily from 9.9 percent to 5 percent. The economy has added about 10.7 million jobs. And the number of working people who have part-time work but would rather have full-time work has fallen by nearly 3 million. There was a brief rise in that number between April and September 2010, but the longer term trend is clearly one of decline.

That’s not to say the Affordable Care Act deserves all the credit. The fact is many factors drive the labor market and the overall recovery from the Great Recession is the dominant player in this regard.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that's PolitiFact arguing that correlation is evidence of causation despite the involvement of multiple causes. PolitiFact says that's a sin when conservative politicians do it.

 It's still sinful but not as much so when liberal politicians do it (research project is underway).

PolitiFact turns liberal blogger into Obamacare expert (Updated)

"We go to original sources to verify the claims. We look for original government reports rather than news stories. We interview impartial experts."

--About PolitiFact

PolitiFact claims it interviews impartial experts. But is that the whole truth?

What if PolitiFact also interviewed partial experts, such as figures with a history of donating to one party or the other?

Or worse, what if PolitiFact arrogated to itself the privilege of elevating a liberal blogger to the status of trusted expert?

Would any conflict with PolitiFact's statement of its fact-checking procedure result?

Let's talk about Charles Gaba.

Charles Gaba

We ran across Gaba's blog quite some time ago. Gaba wrote blog posts claiming to represent the facts on the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as ObamaCare. We found Gaba's approach to his subject matter nakedly partisan, starting with the ObamaCare signup widget in the upper right hand corner of his blog. A Washington Post Wonkblog profile confirmed Gaba's personal partisanship:

He admits that he does have a rooting interest in seeing the law succeed – he’s a volunteer for the local Democratic Party. Still, he says he is just trying to figure out whether the law is working.

“I do think the good outweighs the bad, but I don’t think [Obamacare] is the greatest thing in the world," he said. "I’m a single-payer guy."

So basically neutral, right?

PolitiFact started to cite Gaba as an expert in February 2014:

Charles Gaba, a website developer and blogger in Michigan, has been tracking enrollment figures at his ACASignups.net site. His most recent estimate from late February shows 2.6 million Medicaid sign-ups once you subtract those falling into three categories -- those who signed up in states that didn’t expand Medicaid, those who were previously eligible and who "came out of the woodwork" to sign up, and an estimate of the typical "churn" for Medicaid sign-ups in those states.

In March 2014, April 2014 and November 2014 PolitiFact listed interviews with Gaba for stories on the ACA but did not quote him.

An October 2015 PolitiFact fact check of Donald Trump finally quoted Gaba:

"Yes, some people in some plans through some carriers in some states are, indeed, looking at rate hikes of ‘35 to 50 percent’ if they stick with those plans in 2016," said Charles Gaba, who runs the popular blog ACAsignups.net, which tracks Obamacare enrollment.

To be fair, the expert quoted in PolitiFact's following paragraph, Gail Wilensky, was part of the President George H.W. Bush administration. On the other hand, PolitiFact mentions that in the story. Gaba's apparently just one of those "impartial experts" PolitiFact says it interviews.

Perhaps nobody objected, or perhaps Gaba did nothing to jeopardize his status as an impartial expert, so PolitiFact went to him again in November 2015:

Here are some of the provisions of the law and estimates of how many people have benefited from each. The estimates are from Charles Gaba, who has spent several years crunching the numbers for usage of the law at the blog ACAsignups.net.

Is Gaba active in the Democratic Party and in favor of a national single-payer system? Sure. Though the Washington Post says he's "not a political operative" in the same article where it mentions the other facts. Credit to Newsbusters and P. J. Gladnick for highlighting that discrepancy back on March 20, 2014.

Our congratulations to Mr. Gaba for making the jump from liberal blogger to impartial expert.

We have PolitiFact to thank.


Update Nov. 20, 2015

Who can blame ActBlue for moving to support Gaba's supposedly non-partisan work documenting the truth about the Affordable Care Act?

Charles’s “ACA Signups” series was an incredible and hugely time-intensive undertaking that, as he explained in a recent diary, put a major strain on his life outside of Daily Kos:

“I'm absolutely swamped right now. … [K]eeping the site up to date has literally taken over my life. My business is suffering; my clients are losing patience; my family is starting to get concerned.” - Brainwrap, March 24

We don’t normally do this at Daily Kos, but Charles’s months-long contribution to the fight against right-wing lies about Obamacare was above and beyond. That’s why we’re asking Daily Kos readers to chip in as a way of thanking him for his work and to help him continue his “ACA Signups” series.

Kos diarist and PolitiFact's impartial expert. Nice work if you can get it.

PolitiFact catches Fiorina using hyperbole without a license

PolitiFact's statement of principles guidelines assures readers that PolitiFact allows license for hyperbole:

Is the statement rooted in a fact that is verifiable? We don’t check opinions, and we recognize that in the world of speechmaking and political rhetoric, there is license for hyperbole. 

In practice, however, it's very difficult to uncover evidence that PolitiFact is able to identify hyperbole. The latest example involves GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina (bold emphasis added):

The Affordable Care Act -- Obamacare to some -- is a perennial target of Republicans. But at the GOP presidential debate in Milwaukee, Carly Fiorina made a particularly strong statement about the law’s ineffectiveness.

"Look, I'm a cancer survivor, okay?" Fiorina told moderator Maria Bartiromo of Fox Business Network. "I understand that you cannot have someone who's battled cancer just become known as a pre-existing condition. I understand that you cannot allow families to go bankrupt if they truly need help. But, I also understand that Obamacare isn't helping anyone."

 So PolitiFact fact checks the last sentence and rules it "Pants on Fire." No, we're not kidding.

We say it is odd PolitiFact can hear Fiorina's statement affirming two positive aspects of the Affordable Care Act yet fail to interpret her last statement (denying positive effects) as hyperbole.

Once again, PolitiFact catches a Republican using hyperbole without a license. Those lawless Republicans!

Hot Air: 'Whiplash: Politifact absolves Democrat who repeated…Politifact’s lie of the year'

Rest assured, readers: There's no lack of PolitiFact blunders to write about, merely a lack of time to get to them all. For that reason, we're grateful that we're not the only ones doing the work of exposing the worst fact checker in the biz for what it iz.

Take it away, Guy Benson:

Politifact, the heavily left-leaning political fact-checking oufit, has truly outdone itself.  The organization crowned President Obama as the 2013 recipient of its annual “lie of the year” designation for his tireless efforts to mislead Americans about being able to keep their existing healthcare plans under Obamacare.  While richly deserved, the decision came as a bit of a surprise because Politifact had rated that exact claim as “half true” in 2012, and straight-up “true” in 2008 (apparently promises about non-existent bills can be deemed accurate).

And what did PolitiFact do to outdo itself? Republican senatorial candidate Ed Gillespie ran an ad attacking Democratic rival Mark Warner over pledge not to vote for a bill that would take away people's current health insurance plans.

PolitiFact Virginia, incredibly, ruled the ad "False."

Read Benson's piece at Hot Air in full for all the gory details. The article appropriately strikes down PolitiFact Virginia's thin justification for its ruling.

Also see our past assessment of PolitiFact's preposterous maneuvering on its editorial "Lie of the Year" proclamation from 2013.

Nothing To See Here: The Obamacare architect two-step

When Romneycare/Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber was exposed on video affirming the ACA was designed to withhold subsidies for insurance policies not sold through an exchange established by a state, conservatives tended to connect that to a pair of relevant court cases.

So did we.  But at about the same time, we at PolitiFact Bias wondered whether there's anything to see here from a fact-checking perspective.

Sure, Gruber's remarks tend to pull the rug out from under the administration's insistence that it's appropriately following the law by extending insurance subsidies through the federal exchange system.  It's a big political story based on that alone.  But when Gruber insists that what he said was a "speak-o," the verbal equivalent of a typo, it seems like a fact checker might be interested.

On the other hand, a fact checker that leans left might have a special motivation for either ignoring the story or, even better, placing a special spin on it.

We're here to help.  Here's Gruber, as quoted in the left-leaning The New Republic:

It was never contemplated by anybody who modeled or worked on this law that availability of subsides would be conditional of who ran the exchanges.

And here's Gruber speaking in 2010 Jan. 2012:



Transcript ours (major hat tip to John Sexton for posting the audio), bold emphasis added:

The third risk and the one folks aren't talking about, what may be most important of all, is the role of the states.  Through a political compromise, the decision was made that states should play a critical role in running these health insurance exchanges.  And health insurance exchanges are the centerpiece of this reform.  Because they are the place the (citizens?) can go to shop for their new, securely priced health insurance.  But if they're not set up in a way which is transparent, and which is convenient for shoppers, and which allow people to take their tax credits and use them to (effectively?) buy health insurance, it will undercut the whole purpose of the bill.  Now, a number of states have expressed no interest in doing so.  A number of states, like California, have been a real leader, one of, I think it was the first state to pass an exchange bill.  It's been a leader in setting up its exchange--a great example.  But California's rare. Only about 10 states have really moved forward aggressively in setting up their exchanges.  A number of states have even turned down millions of dollars in federal government grants as a statement of some sort.  They don't support health care reform.  Now, I guess I'm enough of a believer in democracy to think that when the voters in states see that by not setting up an exchange, the politicians of the state are costing citizens in that state hundreds of millions and billions of dollars that they'll eventually throw the guys out.  But, I don't know that for sure. And that is really the ultimate threat is will, will people understand that, gee, if your government doesn't set up an exchange you're losing hundreds of millions of dollars in tax credits to be delivered to your citizens.  So that's the other threat, will states do anything to set it up.

 And here's Gruber in 2012, via Forbes and Michael F. Cannon:

"I think what’s important to remember politically about this, is if you’re a state and you don’t set up an Exchange, that means your citizens don’t get their tax credits."

I'll be completely impressed if PolitiFact treats Gruber to anything lower than a "Half True" on this.  It cuts too deeply a health care reform bill PolitiFact has tried to defend from attacks both real and imagined.

More likely there's nothing to see here.


Jeff adds:

We won't hold our breath waiting for them to weigh in on such a comically embarrassing situation for the liberal side of this debate. But, as we tweeted out on Friday, Angie Holan has several options available to her:

When is a correction not a correction?

This correction is not a correction:

Correction: A Rand survey put the previously uninsured rate at about 36 percent of new marketplace enrollees. An earlier version of this story described the percentage as the "insured rate."

This correction is a correction:

Correction: About 60 percent of people living in Crimea identify themselves as Russian. An earlier version of this story described the statistic differently. This post was updated at 1 p.m. March 3, 2014.

And this is how we can tell the difference.

We pointed out the error in the Sununu fact check over a month ago. To its credit, PolitiFact appended a correction to the article after only a little external prodding.  But PolitiFact has never added the Sununu item to its list of corrections or updates.

The takeaway?  Don't view PolitiFact's corrections page as any kind of accurate measure of its mistakes.  PolitiFact doesn't even put all the mistakes it admits on the corrections page, let alone the mistakes it refuses to acknowledge.

PolitiMath on uninsured Americans

An pseudonymous tipster pointed out problems with an old PolitiFact rating from 2009.

PolitiFact rated President Obama "Mostly True" for his statement that nearly 46 million Americans lack health insurance.

PolitiFact examined Census Bureau data confirming the president's figure, but noted it included 9.7 million non-citizens.  Our tipster pointed out that the number also included an estimated 14 million already eligible for government assistance in getting health insurance. 

The 2004 Census Current Population Survey (CPS) identified 44.7 million non-elderly uninsured in 2003. Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association contracted with the Actuarial Research Corporation (ARC) to provide a detailed analysis of the uninsured identified by the Census Bureau, which found:

• Nearly one-third were reachable through public programs, such as Medicaid and the SCHIP program for children
• One-fifth earn $50,000 or more annually and may be able to afford coverage
• Almost half may have difficulty affording coverage because they earn less than $50,000 per year. Many of these people work for small firms that do not offer health coverage

Given that Obama was using the number of uninsured to promote the need for government intervention, PolitiFact should have mentioned the number of uninsured already able to take advantage of government help.  We're seeing that this year as at least 380,000 of those the administration says are gaining Medicaid through the ACA were already eligible before the law was passed. The administration can claim some credit for getting eligible persons signed up, but it's misleading to say all those signing up for Medicaid are gaining their coverage thanks to the ACA, just as it was misleading to use 14 million assistance-eligible Americans to show the need to offer more of the same kind of assistance.  The need was exaggerated, and PolitiFact failed to properly notice the size of the exaggeration.

The PolitiMath angle

We use the term PolitiMath of the relationships between PolitiFact's math equations and its "Truth-O-Meter" ratings.  Many journalists have trouble properly calculation error percentage, and in this item we find PolitiFact's former chief editor (Bill Adair) and its present chief editor (Angie Drobnic Holan) making a common mistake:

Getting back to Obama's statement, he said, "Nearly 46 million Americans don't have health insurance coverage today." That is the most recent number for the U.S. Census available, but he messes it up in one way that would tend to overcount the uninsured and in another way that would tend to undercount them.

It's an overcount because it counts noncitizens. Take out the 9.7 million noncitizens and the actual number is closer to 36 million. 

... So Obama is sloppy by saying it is for "Americans" but not accounting for the noncitizens, which leaves him off by about 22 percent.

PolitiFact's likely equation:  (46-36)/46   _21.7 percent_

It's the wrong equation, and this is not controversial.  It's basic math.  To find the percentage error the accurate value belongs in the denominator.

The right equation:  (46-36)/36    _27.7 percent_

Marc Caputo of the Miami Herald, a PolitiFact partner paper, made the same mistake months ago and vigorously defended it on Twitter.  Caputo argued that it's okay to do the equation either way.  One can execute the equation accurately in either form, but executing the wrong equation gives the wrong final figure.  Journalists need to consider the ramifications of having two different options for calculating an error percentage.  If one chooses the method in a way that favors one party over another then a pattern of that behavior turns into evidence of political bias.

Caputo used the method more damaging to the Republican to whom he referred.

In Adair and Holan's case, guess which party received the benefit of the wrong equation?

It's a statistic worth following.

Media Trackers: "PolitiFact Florida Scorecard Reveals Pro-Crist Bias in Governor’s Race"

Media Trackers' Florida affiliate takes a healthy whack at PolitiFact Florida for its Crist-leaning coverage of the gubernatorial election.  James Taylor makes a number of solid points, including this one:

In its third ruling, PolitiFact Florida fact-checked the Republican Party of Florida’s assertion that Crist supported “cuts to the Medicare Advantage program.” PolitiFact Florida assigned a flat-out “False” ruling to this claim. It is a legislative fact that Obamacare cuts funding for the Medicare Advantage program. Since becoming a Democrat, Crist has been an ardent supporter of Obamacare. Accordingly, Crist ardently supports a bill that necessitates “cuts to the Medicare Advantage program.” PolitiFact Florida nevertheless justified its “False” ruling by claiming Crist said he personally does not like this particular provision of Obamacare.

Taylor cinches the point by emphasizing the degree to which Obamacare relies on Medicare Advantage cuts to shrink its own price tag.

It's fine for Democratic candidate Charlie Crist to oppose Medicare Advantage cuts.  But they're an integral part of Obamacare, so opposing them is tantamount to opposing at least a part of Obamacare.  And if Crist doesn't oppose the cuts enough to oppose Obamacare over them then he effectively supports the cuts.

It's almost like PolitiFact is playing the "No True Scotsman" game.

True Obamacare doesn't cut Medicare Advantage.  Or something.

PolitiFact's shaky and debatable conclusions (Updated)

On April 10, 2014, PolitiFact graded Sen. John E. Sununu "False" for a statement he made about the health care reform law's effect on the number of uninsured Americans.

There's plenty wrong with PolitiFact's reasoning in that fact check, starting with its assumption that federal spending on the ACA has to do with an increase in the number of people who sign up for insurance through an employer.  Contrary to PolitiFact's skewed focus, Sununu was making the point that the insurance exchanges were providing little bang for the buck in reducing the number of uninsured Americans.

But rather than writing an opus dealing with the entire misguided fact check, we're going to narrowly focus on one particular PolitiFlub:

A Rand survey that debuted a couple days after Sununu’s comments put the previously insured rate at about 36 percent of new marketplace enrollees. The Rand survey did not account for people who signed up for insurance in the final days of March.

If 36 percent of the marketplace enrollees were previously insured, then that leaves the balance, 64 percent, as enrollees moving out of the ranks of the uninsured.  That's a big win for Obamacare and the insurance exchanges!

Actually it's a big blunder by PolitiFact.  Our unbiased, Pulitzer Prize-winning (2009, not 2014) fact checkers left out a little "un" that reverses the percentages.  Here's how the RAND study put it (bold emphasis added):

Our estimates suggest that only about one-third of new marketplace enrollees were previously uninsured. While this percentage seems low in absolute terms, it is slightly higher than an earlier figure reported by McKinsey & Company.

So PolitiFact was way off.

We tried to give PolitiFact warning that might result in a correction.  PolitiFact solicits fact checks with the #politifacthis Twitter hashtag.  We obliged with the following:

PolitiFact: RAND survey "put the previously insured rate at about 36 percent" #PolitiFactThis
— Bryan W. White (@ZebraFactCheck) April 13, 2014

The error in PolitiFact's reporting persists.


Update 4/15/2014 8 p.m.PolitiFact issues a correction, less than 12 hours after we posted.  It probably didn't hurt that we repeated the above tweet @KatieLSanders earlier today.

We appreciate PolitiFact making the correction, particularly since it doesn't always happen.

Bill Clinton enthralls PolitiFact with the magic of ObamaCare

Former President Bill Clinton was a great liar.

He hasn't lost it.

What made the former president from Arkansas such a fine liar?  Part of it was his sincerity.  He seemed so sincere that people wanted to believe him.  Apart from that, Clinton had a gift for saying things that were true but seriously misleading.

This week Clinton showed that he can bamboozle fact checkers with little effort.  Whether PolitiFact bought his act because of his sincerity or perhaps it was just their admiration for President Barack Obama's signature legislation, also known as ObamaCare, we don't know.  But it's pretty amusing how the fact checkers missed the obvious.

Let's pick up PolitiFact's story, already in progress:

Clinton went on to cite data from recent polling by the Commonwealth Fund showing that "large numbers of young people aged 26 and younger have already enrolled in their parents' plans. And interestingly enough -- if I were you guys, I'd promote this, (saying) these Republicans are the personal responsibility party -- there are more young Republicans enrolled in their parents' plans than young Democrats."

The irony that young supporters of the GOP -- the party that has repeatedly tried to repeal or defund Obama’s law -- are actually using this part of the law more than young Democrats are led to chuckles in the audience.

Those GOP hypocrites!  Right?

PolitiFact researches the Commonwealth Fund poll data Clinton cited, and sure enough he was exactly right.  And just to make sure we understand the depth of the Republican hypocrisy, PolitiFact helps Clinton out a bit by clarifying his point (bold emphasis added):

So, Clinton was right -- 63 percent of young Republicans, compared to only 45 percent of young Democrats had signed on to their parents’ plan, something they couldn’t have done without passage of Obama’s law.

Based on this evidence, along with statements from the study's lead author and Obama donor Sara R. Collins, PolitiFact gave Clinton's statement a "True" rating.

But there's a reason Clinton carries the nickname "Slick Willy," and there's also a reason why people often ridicule PolitiFact's rulings.  There's a catch that PolitiFact failed to catch.

As Obvious as the Nose on Clinton's Face

 

Clinton was right to a point about the findings of the survey.  More young Republicans than Democrats signed up or renewed under their parents' insurance policies.  But PolitiFact was exactly wrong to claim that the survey found 63 percent of the Republicans in the survey couldn't sign up under their parents' plans without the ACA.  The study makes that clear (bold emphasis added):

In March 2013, the survey finds that an estimated 15 million young adults ages 19 to 25 had enrolled in a parent’s insurance policy in the prior 12 months—more than half (51%) of that age group—up from the 13.7 million young adults estimated in November 2011 to have enrolled in the prior 12-month period (Exhibit 3, Table 1). Of these 15 million young adults, we estimate that roughly 7.8 million likely would not have been eligible for coverage under their parents’ employer plans prior to the Affordable Care Act, an increase of 1.1 million from November 2011.

So of the Democrats, Independents and Republicans who make up the percentages Clinton and PolitiFact cited, about half were eligible for inclusion under their parents' policies without the ACA.  PolitiFact's reporting is wrong on this point, and the error has obvious implications for Clinton's underlying point.

How Many Hypocrites?

 

What part of the 63 percent of young Republicans signed up for insurance under their parents' policies were eligible thanks to the ACA?

We don't know.  The survey doesn't inform us on that point.

We don't know how many young Republicans are hypocrites.  And we don't know whether the Republican hypocrites outnumber the ideologically pure Democrats who signed up under their parents' insurance thanks to the ACA.

In Clinton's Defense

 

Though we don't know that Clinton got his information on the survey directly from the Commonwealth Fund report, it's appropriate to note that the report encourages the conclusion he suggested even if it lacks the data to back the conclusion:

While public opinion polls have consistently shown a partisan divide in views of the health reform law, the survey finds that young adults who identified themselves as Republicans enrolled in their parents’ policies in greater numbers than young adults who identified themselves as Democrats. In March 2013, 63 percent of Republican young adults had enrolled in a parent’s policy in the past 12 months, compared with 45 percent of Democrats.

If the study has the numbers to back up the contrast between Republican opposition to the ACA and Republican embrace of its benefits, then the study should feature those supporting numbers.  Or maybe Commonwealth Fund is just confirming its reputation for a leftward lean.

How Did PolitiFact Miss It?

 

The meat of the Commonwealth Fund's survey leads with "Exhibit 1," which explains that half of the young Americans signed up for insurance under their parents' policies did not need the ACA to obtain the opportunity.  How does a fact checker miss it?

This is another case where the error is so astonishing that it seems difficult to explain without PolitiFact's predisposition (that is, bias) in favor of the health care law and/or Clinton.

Hoystory: "Dishonest hacks"

Frequent PolitiFact critic Matthew Hoy weighed in about a Crossroads GPS rating about President Obama's claim that "If you like your health care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health care plan."

Hoy gets right to the issue with his trademark eloquence:

It was a lie. Anyone with half a brain knew it.
...

Since I don’t think that [PolitiFact editors] Angie Drobnic Holan and Bill Adair are slack-jawed drooling idiots, that makes their assessment of Obama’s promise evidence that they are dishonest, lying hacks.

Hoy then zeros in on the way PolitiFact interpreted, and assigned a new meaning, to Obama's specific words:

Politifraud:

Obama often said during his 2008 campaign for president that if people liked their health insurance, they wouldn’t have to change it under his proposal, and he continued to say it as president.“If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan,” he said at a 2009 town hall meeting.

Stop there for a moment and think about that quoted statement. When you as an English-speaking individual read those 14 words, do you think Obama’s saying this:

What Obama was talking about was the way his plan left in place the current health care system in the United States.

Seriously? So, according to Politifraud, “If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan” = “We will not institute a single-payer system.”

Well, if you’re going to twist the plain meaning of Obama’s words into that, then I suppose Politifraud should make Humpty Dumpty its mascot.

In all fairness to PolitiFact, subsequent to Hoy's post, they backtracked explained that they weren't really checking Obama's claim at all. They issued this editors note clarification correction update:

We have adjusted the statement to clarify that we are fact-checking the Crossroads GPS claim that "millions could lose their health care coverage and be forced into a government pool." The ruling is unchanged.

This PolitiFact rating is only the latest in a long string of examples showcasing their defense of ObamaCare. (Not to mention their symbiotic defense of RomneyCare). Readers would be hard pressed to find unfavorable ratings of the law in PolitiFact's archives. It's enough to leave discerning observers with the impression that PolitiFact loves the ACA and is willing to protect it with the sophistry and semantic hair-splitting common among partisan actors.

Hoy's trenchant observations and wonderful way with words make it well worth heading over to his site and reading the whole thing.   Don't miss out on the rest.

Hoystory: "Obama’s War on Religion and Conscience"

Matthew Hoy is back at it with his usual biting commentary on PolitiFact. This time he shares his thoughts on the current debate about the effect of PPACA mandates on institutions of the Roman Catholic Church.

Hoy deals broadly with the controversy, but we'll highlight his mention of PolitiFact. At issue is PolitiFact's treatment of Newt Gingrich's statement that the PPACA requires religious institutions to provide insurance coverage for contraceptives:

After honestly analyzing the rule and the law, Politifraud labels Gingrich’s charge “mostly false” as they engage in an amount of hand-waving that would enable human flight without the aid of wings, engines or the other commonly required tools.

Still, if you consider a Catholic church to be a "Catholic institution," or a synagogue to be a "Jewish institution," Gingrich isn’t correct that the recent federal rule on contraceptives applies. Those nonprofit religious employers could choose whether or not they covered contraceptive services.

It’s pretty clear that Gingrich chose his words carefully here and Politifraud is muddying the waters. When I hear the words “Catholic institution” I think of everything Catholic that isn’t the church. I think of hospitals, soup kitchens, homeless shelters, adoption services, the Knights of Columbus, etc. Maybe it’s just because I’m likely more familiar with religious terminology than the (snark on) godless heathens (snark off) who populate many newsrooms, that I interpret it this way. But if the difference between a “True” or “Mostly True” ruling and a “Mostly False” ruling is over whether the word “institution” includes the church or not, then there’s way too much parsing going on.

Parsing words is nothing new for PolitiFact. But that's not the biggest flub Hoy spots:

In the video Politifact links to of Gingrich’s statement (provided by none other than Think Progress), Gingrich makes it clear that he is talking about the rule issued “last week.” The rule issued last week was the one regarding religious employers covering contraceptives in their health plans. Politifraud dishonestly expands that specific criticism of that specific rule into states can set their own benchmarks. No, they can’t. Not when it comes to the rule that came down “last week.” That rule says they MUST cover contraceptives.

Once again Hoy is spot on, though as usual our brief review doesn't do his work justice. Head over to Hoystory and read the whole thing.

Sublime Bloviations: "PolitiFlub: 'Effortless promise-keeping by the president'"

Sometimes, PFB editor Bryan White laments, he can't believe his eyes when he reads various PolitiFact stories. Thus begins his latest review of PolitiFact's most recent "Obameter" rating.

PolitiFact's latest gift to our 44th president came in the form of the coveted "Promise Kept" rating regarding Obama's campaign promise to "...establish a 10 percent federal Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) to require that 10 percent of electricity consumed in the U.S. is derived from clean, sustainable energy sources, like solar, wind and geothermal by 2012."

With Cap and Trade legislation bogged down and unlikely to pass, how did the Commander in Chief manage to fulfill his promise to require greater reliance on green energy sources? PolitiFact intern David G. Taylor lays out how the campaign commitment was committed:

We spoke with the [sic] Christina Kielich of the U.S. Department of Energy press office. She told us that the United States receives approximately 11 percent of its electricity from renewable sources. This breaks down to about 6 percent from hydroelectricity, 3 percent from wind, and approximately 1% each from solar, biomass, and geothermal. Thus, in 2011 - one year head [sic] of Obama"s promise, the United States has already reached more than the 10 percent renewable level.

Holy Pulitzer Prize, Batman! Not only is Obama actually exceeding the 10% he campaigned on, he's a full year ahead of schedule!

But faster than you can say "non-partisan", Bryan points out the flaw:

In case it isn't clear what is going on here, Taylor is substituting a new promise for the old promise. The old promise was that the president would require 10 percent of U.S. energy to come from renewable sources. The new promise is that the U.S. will produce at least 10 percent of its energy from renewable sources. The latter promise is a tad like my personal promise that the sun will come up tomorrow. When the sun appears, my promise is kept. Did I do anything to help it along? Not at all.

As bad as it would be to credit the president with keeping a promise which required nothing of him, the real problem stems from the fact that Obama's promise was one of action. He would establish a requirement. Taylor's story provides no evidence of the establishment of any sort of requirement.

In other words, the amount of energy the U.S. is currently producing, or acquiring, from renewable sources is irrelevant to and independent of Obama's promise to create a renewable energy standard.

Long time PolitiFact followers might note that this is hardly the first time they've granted Obama a positive grade for something he never actually did. Back in 2009 they rated a chain email "Half True" for the claim that Obama "closed off shore tax safe havens." In that rating, Obama had simply proposed legislation that would close off shore tax havens. As the rating noted:

Although the legislation enjoys the support of the White House, it is likely to face strong opposition from corporations that do considerable business overseas....In other words, it's premature to put this one in the "Obama Accomplishments" column.

But why let a little technicality like actually being enacted stop you from putting it in the "Obama Accomplishments" column anyway? Besides, it's not like he's a Republican:

Just as we rate Obama"s [sic] promises kept only when they were passed by Congress and signed into law, we will rate Republican promises not just on whether they pass the House, but whether they are ultimately enacted.

Had Taylor simply followed PolitiFact's own guidelines, he would have realized his Promise Kept rating was dubious just by looking up the date Obama's 10% renewable energy source requirement was "passed by Congress" and "ultimately enacted". Instead, we're left with a gross double standard, and another solid example of PolitiFact's war on objectivity.

Bryan has more issues with the rating that I didn't get into here. As always, read the whole article.

Wall Street Journal-PolitiFiction, True 'lies' about ObamaCare

The Wall Street Journal's editorial page took aim at PolitiFact's 2010 Lie of the Year. They take exception with Politifact's suggestion that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is a free market solution to health care issues-

"We have concluded it is inaccurate to call the plan a government takeover," the editors of PolitiFact announce portentously. "'Government takeover' conjures a European approach where the government owns the hospitals and the doctors are public employees," whereas ObamaCare "is, at its heart, a system that relies on private companies and the free market." PolitiFact makes it sound as if ObamaCare were drawn up by President Friedrich Hayek, with amendments from House Speaker Ayn Rand.

The Journal also joins a chorus of detractors that find PolitiFact's definition of "government takeover" spurious-

Evidently, it doesn't count as a government takeover unless the means of production are confiscated. "The government will not seize control of hospitals or nationalize doctors," the editors write, and while "it's true that the law does significantly increase government regulation of health insurers," they'll still be nominally private too.

In fact—if we may use that term without PolitiFact's seal of approval—at the heart of ObamaCare is a vast expansion of federal control over how U.S. health care is financed, and thus delivered. The regulations that PolitiFact waves off are designed to convert insurers into government contractors in the business of fulfilling political demands, with enormous implications for the future of U.S. medicine. All citizens will be required to pay into this system, regardless of their individual needs or preferences. Sounds like a government takeover to us.

Finally, the editorial questions PolitiFact's ability to remain as non-partisan as they claim, and suggests they injected commentary into the Lie of the Year piece itself-

PolitiFact is run by the St. Petersburg Times and has marketed itself to other news organizations on the pretense of impartiality. Like other "fact checking" enterprises, its animating conceit is that opinions are what ideologues have, when in reality PolitiFact's curators also have political views and values that influence their judgments about facts and who is right in any debate.

In this case, they even claim that the government takeover slogan "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." In other words, voters turned so strongly against Democrats because Republicans "lied," and not because of, oh, anything the Democrats did while they were running Congress. Is that a "fact" or a political judgment? Just asking.

Read the full editorial here. Also check out letters to the editor in response to the column here. PolitiFact linked to the Journal's criticism on their Facebook page, and the comments from their fans are worth a read.