National Review: "PolitiFact, Wrong Again on Health Care"

We've noted with interest Avik Roy's articles noting that the CBO's assessments of insurance loss from GOP health care reform bills place much of the responsibility on repeal of the individual mandate.

We anticipated this research would impact PolitiFact's fact-checking of GOP reform efforts, and National Review's Ramesh Ponnuru delivers the expected assessment in "PolitiFact, Wrong Again on Health Care."

When House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said most of those losing insurance under a GOP proposal were choosing not to buy something they did not want instead of having something taken away, PolitiFact rated his statement "Mostly False."

Ponnuru explains:

The root problem is that (PolitiFact's Jon) Greenberg assumed that the fines on people without insurance—Obamacare’s “individual mandate”—operate only in the market for individually purchased health insurance and that getting rid of them has no effect on Medicaid enrollment. So he thinks that all of the decline in Medicaid enrollment that CBO projects are the result of reforms to Medicaid that would have kept people who want it from getting it, and Ryan is exaggerating the effect of the fines.

Here's how Greenberg explained it in PolitiFact's fact check (bold emphasis added):

The biggest single chunk of savings under the Senate bill comes out of Medicaid. The CBO said that compared with the laws in place today, 15 million fewer people who need insurance would be able to get it through Medicaid or anywhere else.

Ryan’s answer flipped the CBO presentation. According to the CBO, the Senate bill’s impact on people who would get coverage through Medicaid is double that of people who buy on the insurance market. That’s where people make the kind of choices Ryan was talking about.

It looks like Ponnuru has Greenberg dead to rights.

We made the same assumption as Greenberg, though not published in a fact check, which led us to puzzle how to reconcile the high impact of the individual mandate for the CBO's prediction for insurance loss in 2018 with the apparently shrinking impact of the individual mandate in 2025.

Ponnuru's article helps explain the discrepancy, and his explanation exposes one of PolitiFact's claims as false: "The CBO said that compared with the laws in place today, 15 million fewer people who need insurance would be able to get it through Medicaid or anywhere else."

A decent slice of that 15 million, about 7 million by Ponnuru's estimate, will still maintain Medicaid eligibility. They simply won't sign up if not threatened with a fine.  But they can sign up after they fall ill and obtain retroactive coverage for up to three months. If that segment of the population needs Medicaid insurance, it can get Medicaid insurance, contrary to what PolitiFact claimed.

Yes, PolitiFact was wrong again.


Afters

Considering PolitiFact's penchant for declining to change its stories even after critics point out flaws, we wonder if PolitiFact will update its stories affected by the truths Ponnuru mentions.

Ramesh Ponnuru: "PolitiFact vs. Senator Cruz"

Ramesh Ponnuru of National Review takes note of a recent PolitiFact (Texas) flub:

At CPAC, Senator Cruz (who is, I should note, a friend) said that Democrats had told the Catholic Church, “Change your religious beliefs or we’ll use our power in the federal government to shut down your charities and your hospitals.” PolitiFact Texas is on the case, and it finds that in fact Democrats never used those exact words to describe the import of their policies. Its ruling: Cruz’s statement is “incorrect and ridiculous” and therefore merits a “Pants on Fire” rating.

 Ponnuru explains that Sen. Cruz was correct:

The administration’s policy gives these institutions — that is, tells them they have — two choices. They can comply, even if they think doing so violates their consciences (and they are, presumably, the right judges of that question). Or they can refuse to comply and be driven out of operation.

PolitiFact Texas admitted the possibility that the federal government would levy stiff fines that might make it impossible/impractical for various religious entities and businesses to continue operation.  But supposedly found no evidence of a threat to the Roman Catholic Church:

The Catholic bishops have said that potential accumulated fines resulting from refusals to carry out the contraception mandate will cause some institutions to shut down.

Perhaps. However, such prospects do not reflect a direct threat from Democrats or the government. To the contrary, the administration has moved to widen the mandate’s exemption for religious employers and provide a workaround for those who act as their own insurance providers -- with the goal of allowing affected parties to continue their work without violating or changing their beliefs.

Ponnuru likewise points out the trouble with this line of reasoning from PolitiFact.  Visit National Review Online for the rest of the story.

Ramesh Ponnuru: "Stimulus helped debt grow, not the economy"

Via the Columbian, Ramesh Ponnuru reminds us that using models to confirm the effects of the stimulus predictably leaves us with results similar to the results of pre-stimulus predictions using models.

Ponnuru mentioned PolitiFact's role in fact checking the effects of the stimulus in the same context:

Media fact-check organizations have no such doubts. Factcheck.org says it’s “just false” to deny that the stimulus has created jobs. It cites the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate that the stimulus had saved or created millions of jobs. But the CBO, as its director has explained, hasn’t really checked the effect of the stimulus. It has merely reported what the results of additional federal spending and tax credits would be if you assume that spending and tax credits are stimulative.

In other words: If you assume that stimulus works, it must have worked. This circularity doesn’t bother PolitiFact, a group that seeks to elevate the tone of political debates but usually lowers it. It says people who deny the effectiveness have their “pants on fire.”

Ponnuru's column foreshadows the difficulty for the GOP in the coming election.  The mainstream media will defend liberal orthodoxy on issues like the effects of the stimulus and health care bills.