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Health care reform: A summary of recent distortions

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

PolitiFact - By Angie Drobnic Holan - Oct. 24 (News Analysis) - The debate over health care reform has been defined by exaggerations and falsehoods. Republicans have falsely labeled the Democratic plan "government-run health care" and warned of death panels for the elderly and taxpayer subsidies for illegal immigrants. Democrats, meanwhile, have exaggerated the savings of their plan and made false claims about their favorite villains, the insurance companies.

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Records not as vulnerable as group claims

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

PolitiFact - By Louis Jacobson - Oct. 22 (Special Report) - Could Big Brother -- or garden-variety snoopers -- soon get their hands on your medical data? The Senior Citizens League -- a group that boasts 1.2 million members and is affiliated with the Retired Enlisted Association -- recently sent out a mailing saying it was possible. According to a copy obtained by the Huffington Post, the group sent a four-page letter, along with a questionnaire and a cover letter signed by former Rep. David Funderburk, R-N.C., to seniors, expressing two related concerns about Democratic health care reform plans now being debated on Capitol Hill. One is that they could lead to the rationing of care. The other is that the government is assembling a "national government computer network" that will contain Americans' medical files.

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Coulter says husbands rarely beat up their wives

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

PolitiFact - Oct. 22 (News Analysis) - On his Fox News show, commentator Sean Hannity defended Rush Limbaugh, who was dumped by business partners bidding to buy the St. Louis Rams due to controversy about racial comments Limbaugh has made. Hannity brought on conservative pundit Ann Coulter, who argued the NFL has long been "easily very spooked by crazy left-wing hoaxes."

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A new side effect of H1N1 virus: exaggeration

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

PolitiFact - By Robert Farley - Oct. 22 (News Analysis) - Public health officials making the pitch for the H1N1 vaccine to a wary public are having to overcome an unprecedented torrent of misinformation. PolitiFact looked into several of the claims making the rounds in chain e-mails and from political talk show hosts.

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Truth-O-Meter: Statements on Health Care

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

PolitiFact - Oct. 08 (Special Report) - PolitiFact fact-checks statements about health care by members of Congress, the White House, lobbyists and interest groups -- and rates them on their Truth-O-Meter.

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Speed-reading the health care reform bill?

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

PolitiFact - By Angie Drobnic Holan - Oct. 08 (News Analysis) - With the massive health care bill about to come to the House and Senate, members of Congress are arguing about a reading assignment: How long should they have to read a bill that could be 1,000 pages long? House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has promised 72 hours -- three days -- for a final bill to be available online before a vote. Centrist Democratic Senators have asked Majority leader Harry Reid for guarantees of 72 hours for bills in the Senate.

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PolitiFact | Joe Wilson of South Carolina said Obama lied, but he didn't

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

PolitiFact - Sep. 10 (Research) - When we look at all of this evidence, it seems that health reform leaves in place the status quo on illegal immigration, and certainly does not provide any new benefits particularly for illegal immigrants.

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Obama makes the case for health care reform

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

PolitiFact - By Angie Drobnic Holan, Louis Jackson - Sep. 10 (News Analysis) - Seeking to jump-start efforts to pass a health care bill, President Barack Obama defended his reform plan in a speech to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday night. Obama repeated several of his principles for reform, rebutted attacks from critics, and sought to explain the complex plan so that voters could understand it.

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Health care reform: A simple explanation

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

PolitiFact - By Angie Drobnic Holan - Aug. 14 (News Analysis) - From death panels for the disabled to euthanasia for Granny, blatantly, patently wrong information about health care has gotten a lot of attention. (See our Greatest Hits list for the ones we found most significant.) But set aside the shouting, and there are still many legitimate areas for debate. Details on health care are very much works in progress, and Congress is considering a number of measures. With President Obama and the Democrats largely on the defensive, a lot of the debate has focused on what the bills are not. Here, we'll explain what's actually in the bills, and where the genuine disagreements lie.

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Sarah Palin falsely claims Barack Obama runs a 'death panel'

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

PolitiFact - Aug. 11 (News Analysis) - We have read all 1,000-plus pages of the Democratic bill and examined versions in various committees. There is no panel in any version of the health care bills in Congress that judges a person's "level of productivity in society" to determine whether they are "worthy" of health care.

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Palin 'death panel' claim sets Truth-O-Meter ablaze

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

PolitiFact - By Angie Drobnic Holan - Aug. 11 (News Analysis) - We've looked at the inflammatory claims that the health care bill encourages euthanasia. It doesn't. There's certainly no "death board" that determines the worthiness of individuals to receive care. Conservatives might make a case that Palin is justified in fearing that the current reform could one day morph into such a board.

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Statements on Health

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

PolitiFact - Aug. 07 (Investigative Report) - "Under the Obama plan . . . all the health care in this country is eventually going to be run by the government."

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Your guide to the cap-and-trade estimates

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

PolitiFact - By Catharine Richert - Jul. 02 (News Analysis) - With Congress considering a sweeping cap-and-trade bill to limit carbon emissions and slow global warming, there have been a perplexing array of cost estimates. We can't tell you which one is right — even the experts can't agree on that — but we wanted to provide an overview of the various studies to help you put them in perspective.

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Obama reverses on release of abuse photos

Fri, 15 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

PolitiFact - May. 15 (News Analysis) - President Barack Obama announced his administration was reversing course about the release of photographs depicting the abuse of foreign prisoners. We're rating this the first Full Flop of the Obama presidency.

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First 100 Days: Obama's two biggest promises

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

PolitiFact - By Bill Adair - Apr. 29 (Editorial) - For the final installment in our coverage of President Barack Obama's first 100 days, we decided to look at the 514 campaign promises in our Obameter database and choose two -- one Kept and one Broken -- that we consider the most significant because they illustrate the early accomplishments and setbacks of his presidency.

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First 100 Days: Obama and the big picture

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

PolitiFact - By Robert Farley, Angie Drobnic Holan - Apr. 28 (News Analysis) - President Barack Obama's first 100 days have at times seemed a blur of activity, but he mostly has stuck to a blueprint outlined in his presidential campaign, according to an analysis of campaign promises by PolitiFact.

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First 100 Days: Obama's Promises Broken

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

PolitiFact - By Angie Drobnic Holan - Apr. 27 (News Analysis) - As the 100-day mark of his presidency approaches, President Barack Obama has broken six promises, according to a PolitiFact analysis. That's a small portion of the 514 promises we're tracking, but the six represent some of Obama's key campaign themes.

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First 100 Days: Obama's Promises Kept

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

PolitiFact - By Robert Farley - Apr. 23 (News Analysis) - Barack Obama promised change -- lots of it. And in his first 100 days, a PolitiFact analysis finds he has already fulfilled 27 promises and begun work on 61 others that we've rated In the Works.

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The Obama White House vs. the Truth-O-Meter

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

PolitiFact - By Bill Adair - Apr. 23 (Special Report) - President Barack Obama and his top administration officials have faced the Truth-O-Meter 21 times since they took office, and they can claim a small victory: They haven't earned any Pants on Fire ratings. But their record for their first 100 days is far from perfect. We've given the Obama White House four False and two Barely True ratings. The Barely True ratings, along with a couple of the Half Trues, illustrate that the Obama White House has quickly learned the art of cherry-picking, selectively choosing the best scenarios and most favorable numbers for their claims.

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Sorting out the truth about guns in Mexico

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

PolitiFact - By David Adams, Robert Farley - Apr. 17 (News Analysis) - With growing violence on the U.S.-Mexico border fueled by powerful drug cartels, officials from both countries have been repeating a shocking statistic to suggest this isn't just a Mexican problem.

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No proposal to end taxes for seniors making less than $50,000

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

PolitiFact - By Angie Drobnic Holan - Apr. 16 (News Analysis) - President Obama's campaign pledge to end taxes for seniors making less than $50,000 has fallen off the radar. It wasn't part of the tax cuts in the economic stimulus bill, also known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. It wasn't in Obama's first budget outline, which was approved by Congress on April 2, 2009. And it's not part of any proposed legislation that we can find. Today, on Tax Day, Obama gave a speech in which he talked about his other tax promises and how he wants to reshape the tax code to make it simple and more efficient. But he never mentioned his promise of curtailing the income tax for seniors. The Obama administration has done other things for seniors. Thanks to the stimulus bill, for example, everyone who gets Social Security benefits will receive a $250 check from the government in May. But the bold promise to end taxes for seniors if they make less than $50,000 seems to be forgotten.

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The Obameter: Tracking Barack Obama's Campaign Promises

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

PolitiFact - Apr. 15 (Special Report) - PolitiFact has compiled about 500 promises that Barack Obama made during the campaign and is tracking their progress on our Obameter. We rate their status as No Action, In the Works or Stalled. Once we find action is completed, we rate them Promise Kept, Compromise or Promise Broken.

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Not a radical group, and Ayers didn't run it

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

PolitiFact - Oct. 13 (News Analysis) - In short, this was a mainstream foundation funded by a mainstream, Republican business leader and led by an overwhelmingly mainstream, civic-minded group of individuals. Ayers' involvement in its inception and on an advisory committee do not make it radical – nor does the funding of programs involving the United Nations and African-American studies. This attack is false, but it's more than that – it's malicious. It unfairly tars not just Obama, but all the other prominent, well-respected Chicagoans who also volunteered their time to the foundation. They came from all walks of life and all political backgrounds, and there's ample evidence their mission was nothing more than improving ailing public schools in Chicago. Yet in the heat of a political campaign they have been accused of financing radicalism. That's Pants on Fire wrong.

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Fact-Checking the Debate: McCain and Obama Less Than Perfect

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700

PolitiFact - By Bill Adair - Sep. 29 (News Analysis) - The debate at the University of Mississippi was supposed to focus on foreign policy, but with the nation teetering on the brink of catastrophic financial collapse, much of the talk was about Wall Street -- and Main Street. Indeed, both Barack Obama and John McCain spoke of Main Street and said it should be the focus of any federal rescue effort.

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Sorting out the truth on taxes

Mon, 22 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700

PolitiFact - By Angie Drobnic Holan - Sep. 22 (News Analysis) - The Bush tax cuts are set to expire during the next president's term, and each candidate has a different way of addressing that, along with other proposals.

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