The liberal group Health Care for America Now is airing an ad that argues against a tax on high-cost employer-provided health care plans, a revenue-raising aspect of the Senate Finance Committee bill. "Some senators say they want to tax so-called ‘Cadillac’ health care plans, but those proposals will also tax the benefits of millions of middle class workers," the narrator says as an on-screen graphic pops up, claiming "40% tax on health care benefits of middle-class workers."
Stories by Lori Robertson
Managing Editor, FactCheck.org
Another Salvo from the Insurance Industry
Just a few days after the release of an insurance industry-backed study that found premiums would go up under the Senate health care bill, another industry-backed report has been published. Both reach the same conclusion about premiums. Both fail to take into consideration certain cost-saving measures in the Finance Committee bill. And both acknowledge that.
In an earlier Wire post, we explained some of the limitations of the first report, drawn up by PricewaterhouseCoopers for the trade group American’s Health Insurance Plans and then flagged as a less-than-adequate evaluation of the bill by PwC itself.
The PricewaterhouseCoopers Premium Problem
It makes for a pretty easy day of fact-checking when the very authors of a less-than-thorough analysis of a bill come out and say, you know, that study wasn’t exactly thorough.
And we didn’t pay them to say that.
America’s Health Insurance Plans, the main insurance industry lobby, however, did pay PricewaterhouseCoopers to take a look at certain aspects of the Senate Finance Committee health care bill – certain aspects AHIP doesn’t really like. PwC concluded that the bill would increase health care premiums substantially more than they would rise otherwise.
Targeting Ensign
We’re not ones to doubt that money can influence politics. But uncovering a paying-for-favors scandal takes more than a mere list of campaign contributions and a few committee votes.
That tactic, however, is being used – again – in the health care debate, this time in an ad from the liberal group Health Care for America Now. HCAN’s TV spot, which will run in Reno and Las Vegas for one week on a $110,000 buy, draws a link between Republican Sen.
Obama’s Reading Material
Q: Was Obama reading an anti-America book written by a Muslim?
A: No. The book, a New York Times best-seller, is about America's role in a new global era. The author, a leading journalist, is a Muslim but describes himself as "not a religious guy."
Taxing Businesses – and Consumers?
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Campaign for Responsible Health Reform has released a new ad that says politicians in Congress "want new taxes on health care companies, taxes that will get passed on to you."
The TV ad, which began airing Sept. 18 in 13 states, refers to the new Senate Finance Committee bill (aka Sen. Max Baucus’ bill), which proposes a tax on the most expensive health care plans, the type that gave rise to the term "Cadillac plan"
Dying from Lack of Insurance
A new study from researchers with the Harvard Medical School found that 45,000 deaths a year can be attributed to the lack of health insurance. Our readers ask: Really? And, they want to know, isn’t this finding actually from the single-payer advocacy group Physicians for a National Health Program?
We’ll answer the latter first: The study was conducted by six researchers who were all with the Department of Medicine at Cambridge Health Alliance, which is affiliated with Harvard Medical School.
Denial of Claims
Insurance companies aren’t very popular these days, and it’s certainly not too difficult to dig up a horror story or two of how a patient’s medical claim was denied unfairly. But do companies really "deny payment for 1 out of every 5 treatments doctors prescribe," as a new ad says?
Health Care for America NOW, a liberal group supporting health care overhaul efforts in Congress, makes the claim in a new ad campaign:
The ad, airing for two weeks on national cable,
A False Appeal to Women’s Fears
A conservative group with Republican ties called the Independent Women’s Forum is airing an ad that says “300,000 American women with breast cancer might have died” if our health care were “government run” like England’s, citing the American Cancer Society as a source …
‘SpotCheck.org’? We Disagree.
In an Aug. 20 appearance on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” former New York Lt. Gov. (and health care legislation critic) Betsy McCaughey referred to our organization as “spot-check dot org,” claiming we failed to adequately read the House health care bill. McCaughey is the source of the false claim that the bill calls for mandatory counseling for seniors “to do what’s in society’s best interest … and cut your life short.”
As we said in our article “False Euthanasia Claims,”