FactCheck.org

37th in Health Performance?

October 21, 2009

The Wall Street Journal‘s "Numbers Guy," Carl Bialik, takes a deeper look at a well-worn statistic: that the U.S. ranks 37th in the world in health system performance. His conclusion:

WSJ’s Bialik, Oct. 21: Among all the numbers bandied about in the health-care debate, this ranking stands out as particularly misleading.

The No. 37 figure comes from a 2000 World Health Organization report that attempted to grade nations’ health care according to five factors and assign an overall ranking to each.

Cadillac Plans and the Middle Class

October 20, 2009

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."

RGA Not Amused by Daggett

October 16, 2009

Chris Christie, the Republican nominee in New Jersey’s gubernatorial contest, recently called the candidacy of Chris Daggett, a former Environmental Protection Agency administrator who’s running on the Independent ticket, an "amusement." But the Republican Governors Association isn’t so amused by Daggett.
With polls showing Daggett cutting into Christie’s lead, the RGA has released both a 15-second TV spot and a 60-second radio ad saying the Independent candidate is like the state’s current governor, Democrat Jon Corzine,

Striking Out on Antitrust

October 15, 2009

The liberal advocacy group Americans United for Change features the national pastime in a new ad that attacks the insurance industry and calls for competition in the field.

The ad says that "baseball and insurance are the only industries exempt from antitrust law." But that claim is about as accurate as Randy Johnson’s fastball to John Kruk in the 1993 All-Star game. Antitrust exemptions have been granted to quite a few different industries and groups through legislation and judicial review.

Aftermath of a Court Race

October 15, 2009

Wisconsin ’08 was one of the nastiest state Supreme Court elections in modern history. Incumbent Justice Louis Butler went down to defeat after opponent Mike Gableman and business interests in the state ran slashing, misleading ads portraying him as soft on crime. We criticized the spots in several stories.
Today, Gableman, though sitting on Wisconsin’s highest court, is still fighting a legal battle over whether he lied in one of the ads that helped put him there.

Another Salvo from the Insurance Industry

October 15, 2009

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.

AHIP on the Attack: 50 Percent of What?

October 14, 2009

Almost immediately after releasing an incomplete report on the supposed increase in premiums that the Senate’s health care overhaul bill would trigger, the health insurers’ trade group took to the airwaves with a TV ad claiming the bill would shortchange millions of seniors.

This ad, which is sponsored by America’s Health Insurance Plans, screams for context.
As we’ve written previously, it’s true that about 10 million seniors are on Medicare Advantage, as the ad says, which means they’ve chosen to get their benefits from a private insurer instead of through the fee-for-service route that 78 percent of Medicare recipients use.

The PricewaterhouseCoopers Premium Problem

October 13, 2009

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.

McDonnell’s Distorted Attack

October 12, 2009

Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell’s new ad claims that Democrat Creigh Deeds’ policies would bring $7,800 in higher taxes over four years for Virginia households. The ad would be devastating, if it were true.

Fuel for Frustration
Deeds has never proposed a "billion dollar gas tax increase," as the ad claims. It’s true that many transportation experts and legislators in Virginia have said that an additional $1 billion per year is needed to widen highways,

1,120 Days – and Counting – Till Election 2012!

October 12, 2009

In what could be an early preview of the 2012 campaign, Mitt Romney – a once and perhaps future Republican presidential hopeful – has released a new video on his political action committee’s Web site attacking President Barack Obama on climate change legislation.

Romney says that any cap-and-trade proposal "wouldn’t do a thing" because it would simply move "greenhouse gas emitters from America, to other nations like China and India that don’t participate in our program."