This quote wasn't easy to fact-check, for several reasons: Hatch doesn't provide a source for his figures or much of a clue as to what he's talking about. A Republican member of Congress issued similar talking points that provided an incorrect link to the federal regulations he's referring to. And while Hatch says this with certainty, the regulations only predict what could happen in the future.

Score one for crowdsourcing, though: NewsTrust contributor Gerald Zuckier found the right set of regulations, read them and concluded that Hatch misstates what the regulations say. After reading the regulations, we agree.

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This quote wasn't easy to fact-check, for several reasons: Hatch doesn't provide a source for his figures or much of a clue as to what he's talking about. A Republican member of Congress issued similar talking points that provided an incorrect link to the federal regulations he's referring to. And while Hatch says this with certainty, the regulations only predict what could happen in the future.

Score one for crowdsourcing, though: NewsTrust contributor Gerald Zuckier found the right set of regulations, read them and concluded that Hatch misstates what the regulations say. After reading the regulations, we agree.

Here's what Hatch said in his letter to President Obama: "As a direct result of these new rules, 87 million Americans – or 51 percent of those with employer-provided health care – will be forced out of their current coverage, with small businesses being the most adversely impacted."

As with many political statements, the issue is much more complicated than it's presented. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act makes an exception for health insurance plans that existed when the law was passed. Those plans are "grandfathered" in as long as they meet certain conditions. Importantly, they can't shift too much of the costs to the insured or cut benefits beyond a certain threshold.

The new regulations include a study of how many employer-provided insurance care plans are likely to lose their grandfathered status because they make changes that aren't allowed under the law. It doesn't say that these people will be forced out of their current coverage; only that these plans will lose their special status and would have to follow all the provisions of the new law.

Several Truthsquadders noted that insurance benefits change all the time -- in some cases, every year. The regulations note this uncertainty too. Just because a plan remains in effect doesn't mean that the coverage remains the same. In a broad sense, millions of people are "forced" out of current coverage on an annual basis when their companies switch issuers or change their benefits.

Putting that aside, how many plans are predicted to lose their grandfathered status? The regulations provide low, medium and high predictions; the mid-range estimate is that 51 percent of plans would lose their grandfathered status. So that's apparently where the 51 percent figure comes from.

But 51 percent of insurance plans isn't the same as 51 percent of Americans, which is what Hatch stated. The study divides health insurance plans into two groups: employers with 99 or fewer employees and those with 100 or more. The regulations state that 97 million Americans are covered by the large plans and 41 million by the small ones. It's impossible to correlate the number of plans with the number of people covered by them. One plan that covers 200 people could lose its coverage. The same could happen to a plan that covers 50,000 people. Each counts as one plan.

Even without that uncertainty, the math still doesn't result in the figure that Hatch cites. Fifty-one percent of all the people covered by employer health care plans is about 80 million people, not 87 million. Using the study's high estimate, you get 108 million people.

For all these reasons, we rate Hatch's statement as false.

By Steve Myers, on behalf of the Truthsquad editors
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