FactCheck.org : Democrats’ ‘End Medicare’ Whopper, Again
Can the “Lie of the Year” still be used to defeat Republicans?
Democrats hope so, and a super PAC is using an Iowa congressional race to retest the claim that House Republicans voted to “end Medicare.” But we find the Iowa ads to be little improved from last year, when we labeled this claim as among the worst “Whoppers of 2011.”
In fact, Democrats are doubling down this time. When their GOP target fought back with his own ad quoting the “Lie of the Year” finding from Politifact.com (and making his own misleading claim), the House Majority PAC was undeterred. It simply repeated the claim in a second ad, saying, “We know the facts.” Perhaps so. But the PAC is misleading voters.
…The ads also say: “Seniors would be forced to pay $6,400 more.” But that’s not true for today’s seniors — including the gray-haired people pictured in the ads. The $6,400 figure is a fair interpretation of what a Congressional Budget Office report projected — for somebody turning age 65 in the year 2022 or later. Under the Republican plan, anyone age 55 or older would not have been affected at all, save for the repeal of a sweetened prescription-drug benefit contained in the new health care law.
Medicare would have been fundamentally changed, but by no means “ended.” Those now under age 55 would have been given, when they reached age 65, a choice of private insurance plans, and federal subsides to help pay for one. That’s much like the system Democrats have enacted to cover many younger workers in their new health care law, and like the Medicare Advantage system that covers about one in four Medicare beneficiaries today.
We later called the claim one of the “Whoppers of 2011,” and our friends at Politifact.com and the Washington Post agreed. Politifact called it the “Lie of the Year,” and the Post‘s “Fact Checker” columnist Glenn Kessler called it an untruth worthy of four Pinocchios — his worst possible rating — and later one of the “The biggest Pinocchios of 2011.”
Politifact’s “Lie of the Year” rating drew howls from liberal commentators and left-leaning news outlets, including MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, not to mention Democratic operatives, as though they collectively held a trademark on the name “Medicare.”