FactCheck.org

Dueling Ads in Virginia Race, Part 2

September 21, 2009

Last week, we wrote about a TV ad from Virginia state Sen. Creigh Deeds, the Democratic candidate to be the state’s governor, which misleadingly described his opponent’s role in utility rate increases over the last few years. Deeds’ Republican challenger, former Virginia Attorney General Bob McDonnell, responded with a misleading ad of his own.

The ad turns the tables on Deeds, saying that he "supports Washington’s cap and trade energy scheme that will dramatically increase utility rates for families and kill 56,000 coal and manufacturing jobs."

Dueling Ads in Virginia Race

September 18, 2009

A TV ad from Virginia state Sen. Creigh Deeds, who’s running on the Democratic ticket in one of the nation’s two gubernatorial races this year, misleadingly describes his opponent’s role in utility rate increases over the last several years.
The Deeds campaign’s ad, "Power," asks viewers, "In tough times, what kind of politician sides with Appalachian Power?" The answer is "Bob McDonnell," according to the ad’s narrator. According to the narrator, McDonnell, the former state attorney general and GOP candidate,

Too Good to Check?

September 18, 2009

Slate writer Tim Noah ‘fesses up to, and dissects, his erroneous telling of an anecdote about an Illinois man whose insurance company canceled his coverage while he was in the middle of chemotherapy. Noah’s July 27 column – which said, wrongly, that "the delay in treatment eliminated [the man’s] chances of recovery, and he died" – was the source for President Obama’s careless repetition of the story in his health care address to Congress on Sept.

Denial of Claims

September 18, 2009

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,

Thirty Million Uninsured

September 16, 2009

One of the items we noted in our Sept. 10 wrap-up of President Barack Obama’s televised prime-time address to Congress was his carefully worded estimate of the number of uninsured citizens.

Obama, Sept. 9: There are now more than 30 million American citizens who cannot get coverage.

We said that Obama appeared to be underestimating the number of uninsured, even if we subtract the estimated 10 million uninsured who are not U.S. citizens. With the Census Bureau now reporting 46.3 million people without insurance,

How Many Protesters?

September 16, 2009

We’ve often observed an odd quirk in the behavior of political partisans; they tend to exaggerate even when they could make their point without doing so.
The most recent example is the weekend protest in Washington, D.C., at which a very large number of people turned out to criticize the Obama administration. Fox News reported that "tens of thousands" turned out, as did all major news outlets. The Washington, D.C., Fire Department put the number between 60,000 and 70,000,

Retraction: Health Insurance Market Concentration

September 16, 2009

Note: We are retracting one of our Sept. 10 criticisms of President Obama’s speech on health care. We said that he "overstated the degree of concentration in the insurance industry." We have continued to research the subject, and the following information turned up by our reporter D’Angelo Gore has led us to change our judgment. While the president may have overstated the findings of one study, we have now found others that show market concentration at least as severe as he described.

Sweet: Another Stretch by Obama

September 13, 2009

The Chicago Sun-Times’ columnist and Washington Bureau Chief Lynn Sweet reports on an Obama exaggeration that we missed.
Sweet said Obama "went too far" when he said, in his health care speech to Congress and the nation Sept. 9:

Obama, Sept. 9: One man from Illinois lost his coverage in the middle of chemotherapy because his insurer found that he hadn’t reported gallstones that he didn’t even know about. They delayed his treatment, and he died because of it.

Immigrants and Insurance

September 11, 2009

Several readers have e-mailed us about a report from the Congressional Research Service that they say proves illegal immigrants will have coverage under the proposed House health care plan. In fact, that report says exactly what we concluded yesterday: The bill does not provide coverage for illegal immigrants, but there’s no enforcement mechanism explicitly specified. The newly created Health Choices Commissioner would be responsible for deciding how applicants for the affordability credits would need to prove their eligibility.

TGIF

September 11, 2009

The last weekend of summer may have knocked a day off of the work week, but the false and misleading claims didn’t take a break. As always, we were on the case.
The highlight of the week, of course, was President Obama’s Sept. 9 address on health care to a joint session of Congress. Contrary to at least one now-notorious critic, the president did not lie about illegal immigrants: The House bill specifically states that no affordability credits will go to anyone in the country illegally.