Factually Challenged

18Mar/101

New from the, “YOU LIE!”, department

YOU LIE!

Obama's been telling some real whoppers lately when it comes to characterizing the effects of his healthcare plan on insurance premiums, as outlined in this "AP fact check" piece. Now, I've been real critical of AP for spinning most reportage about the President and his agenda in the most favorable light possible, like the way the metrics on unemployment, retail sales, mortgages, and housing data always seem to be "unexpectedly" moving in the opposite of the desired direction. And that's exactly what makes this AP/Obama fact check piece so much more interesting; because they actually point out the liberties that Obama has taken with the truth about premiums under his proposed plan. Didn't he hear Rachel Maddow recently demanding that when debating Obamacare, we stick to the facts!

Buyers, beware: President Barack Obama says his health care overhaul will lower premiums by double digits, but check the fine print.

Premiums are likely to keep going up even if the health care bill passes, experts say. If cost controls work as advertised, annual increases would level off with time. But don't look for a rollback. Instead, the main reason premiums would be more affordable is that new government tax credits would help cover the cost for millions of people.

Listening to Obama pitch his plan, you might not realize that's how it works.

The plain "facts" are that Obamcare's mandates would essentially do away with the more modest benefit, high deductible, plans that are available today as well as preclude consideration of pre-existing conditions; 2 factors that are guaranteed to increase the individual, pre-tax-credit, costs. Last year, the CBO said as much, that premiums would increase, something that seemed to be missed amongst the flurry of legislative cost estimates for, what was at that time, several parallell, rapidly evolving, Senate Obamacare plans being considered. Heck, even Dick Durbin, a man known less for reality based pronouncements than party-line talking points, recently conceded that, "of course healthcare premiums will still go up, anyone who would stand before you and say 'well, if you pass healthcare reform that your next years premiums will go down ' I don't think is telling the truth..."

But, you know, I guess he didn't get the memo that day.

Still, it gets even better.

Obama asked his audience for a show of hands from people with employer-provided coverage, what most Americans have.

"Your employer, it's estimated, would see premiums fall by as much as 3,000 percent," said the president, "which means they could give you a raise."

A White House press spokesman later said the president misspoke; he had meant to say annual premiums would drop by $3,000.

It could be a long wait.

...

An analysis by the Congressional Budget Office of earlier Senate legislation suggested savings could be fairly modest.

It found that large employers would see premium savings of at most 3 percent compared with what their costs would have been without the legislation. That would be more like a few hundred dollars instead of several thousand.

Wow. I don't know what to think. Is this a typical Obama play-it-fast-and-loose-with-the-facts kind of gaffe? Does it show the desperation to avoid a political "Waterloo"; to convince people that Obamacare is in their "economic interest" (his fave euphamism for an entitlement bribe) regardless of just how far he needs to stretch the truth? Could it be that he's decided to pull out all of the bamboozling stops, in conjunction with all of the legislative chicanery going on in congress, in order to pass his plan? Or, could he and Robert Gibbs be playing a good-ol'-boys game of, "can you believe those hicktard rubes bought that whopper?". I mean, they could have a dinner at Ruth's Chris or Bobby Van's bet on it. Or maybe they're just doing it for the lulz...

Considering episodes like this, along with his disastrous interview appearance on Fox last night, one where he looked shifty, evasive, small, petty, and disingenuous, it's no surprise that even Gallup has him upside down in the polls. Effin' Gallup !

Gallup? AP? Who's next?