A Republican claim that the federal health care law taxes “heart attacks, sick puppies and even new babies” is a dog. Turns out it’s a reference to excise taxes on certain medical devices.
The National Republican Congressional Committee crams a highlight reel of misleading claims about the health care law into a 90-second video that encourages viewers to sign an “I Want Repeal” petition. We’ve seen most of these before, but the claim about puppies and babies was new to us.
Issues: health care
More Government Takeover Spin
Mitt Romney counts both public and private health care spending to come up with the exaggeration that government will make up “almost 50 percent” of the U.S. economy once the federal health care is fully in effect.
See our May 10 article, “Romney’s ‘Gross’ Exaggeration on ‘Obamacare,’ ” for more.
Viral Claims, Part II
A long-running chain email claims that Medicare premiums are going to shoot up to $247 per month in 2014 because of the health care law. That’s not true no matter how many times this email is forwarded.
See our April 30 Ask FactCheck — “Realtors, the 3.8% ‘Sales Tax’ and $247 Medicare Premiums” — for more.
It’s a Job-Killer?
Claims that the health care law kills jobs are greatly exaggerated.
Read more about the claim in our Feb. 21 article, “GOP’s ‘Job-Killing’ Whopper, Again.”
A Bogus Tax Attack Against Obama
The latest multimillion-dollar attack ad from Crossroads GPS claims President Obama broke a promise to not increase taxes for families making less than $250,000 a year. That’s almost entirely false.
The truth is that Obama repeatedly cut taxes for such families, first through a tax credit in effect for 2009 and 2010, and beginning in 2011, through a reduction in the payroll tax that is worth $1,000 this year to workers earning $50,000 a year.
Romney’s ‘Gross’ Exaggeration on ‘Obamacare’
Mitt Romney falsely claims government will “constitute … almost 50 percent” of the U.S. economy when the new federal health care law takes full effect. But Romney gets to 50 percent by erroneously counting all health care spending — private and public — as “effectively under government control once Obamacare is fully implemented,” as his spokesman put it.
That’s nonsense — just as it was two years ago, when Rep. Michele Bachmann made a similar bogus claim.
‘The Life of Julia,’ Corrected
‘Death Panels’ Redux
Q: Did an emergency-room physician in a Tennessee hospital say the new health care law is currently denying dialysis to some Medicare patients, and will deny care to those over 75 in 2013?
A: No. A spokesman for the hospital says the doctor never said the things attributed to her in a chain email, and they are not true. A guest in the doctor’s home fabricated the account.
Deja Vu: The Latest Attacks from Santorum
The latest TV spot from Rick Santorum’s campaign recycles a veritable “Best Of” list of misleading claims about Mitt Romney’s record and positions.
Regular readers of FactCheck.org may recognize some claims as ones we have tagged as misleading, repeatedly. The ad says Romney’s health care law “included $50 abortions and killed thousands of jobs.” It says Romney supported “job-killing cap and trade.” And it asks viewers to believe that Romney “stuck taxpayers with a 1 billion dollar shortfall”
Misleading on Premiums
Both the Republican National Committee and the Obama administration are making misleading claims about health insurance premium costs. An RNC ad falsely implies that the federal health care law is responsible for all of the $1,300 average increase in family coverage premiums last year. But at the same time, the Obama administration makes the misleading claim that families “could save up to $2,300” on health care costs per year in the future by buying insurance through exchanges called for by the law.