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Thom Hartmann Torches Politifact For Nominating ‘Mediscare’ As ‘Lie Of The Year’

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by Tommy Christopher | 2:18 pm, December 16th, 2011

» 30 comments

Just in time to help shill for the ill-conceived Ryan-Wyden Medicare “reform” plan, fact-checking website Politifact.com has nominated Democratic claims about Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) Medicare-destroying budget for its “Lie of the Year” award. Liberal radio and TV host Thom Hartmann called the Pulitzer Prize-winning site out over the move, applying a blowtorch to the site’s trousers on Wednesday’s The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann.

Politifact’s original fact-check was pegged to a specific political ad from the DCCC, and while it takes issue with several of the ad’s claims, the “Lie of the Year” award is based solely on the claim that “Republicans voted to end Medicare.”

Hartmann does a great job of fisking Politifact’s article, pointing out the logical leaps and lapses it takes to call the ad a “lie.” As Hartmann puts it, if you pour milk into a Coke can, you can still call it a can of Coke, but it isn’t one. Ryan’s plan would replace Medicare benefits with a voucher to buy insurance, one which the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says would leave Medicare recipients on the hook for nearly triple the amount they pay now for health care. That’s like replacing a pile of dollar bills with 30¢ coupons, and still calling it “cash.”

Politifact also took issue with the ad for failing to mention that Ryan’s proposed changes would only affect senior citizens who are 55 years old now, a ridiculous objection. How, exactly, was the DCCC supposed to depict these people? Should they have put them in jet packs and hovercars? The fact that Ryan and his supporters went around telling current seniors they have nothing to worry about only underscores the fact that Ryan’s plan is, indeed, something to worry about.

Finally, Politifact found the phrase “voted to end” Medicare misleading because the vote Republicans took was symbolic. That doesn’t make the claim a lie, or even an exaggeration. If the plan ends Medicare (which it does), Republicans definitely voted for it. Symbolic or not, they signified their intent to do so, and they did it by voting. The fact that the Democrats were there to prevent them from enacting it doesn’t absolve Republicans of wanting to do it.

The real issue here is the effect of naming ”Republicans voted to end Medicare” the “Lie of the Year.” As I’ve noted many times on these pages, and as even conservative publications have noted, these “fact check” outfits are granted far too much credibility on the basis of that title. Politifact, by virtue of its Pulitzer win, benefits more than others from this phenomenon, although they frequently get it wrong. The average news consumer will see a “Lie Of The Year” headline as an indication that the Ryan plan really is nothing to worry about, even though Politifact itself acknowledges it will double costs for seniors, and “is a dramatic change of course.”

Trumpeting this “award” will, of course, loosen the jar for the ridiculous Ryan/Wyden plan, which is superficially better than Ryan’s original plan because it pegs the voucher amount to the actual cost of health insurance premiums. In reality, it’s just a back-door attack on Medicare that actually illustrates that the true intent of the Ryan plan is to end Medicare.

The modified plan won’t really save any money, but it accomplishes the heaviest lift in the war on Medicare: decoupling senior citizens from their benefits. Once that’s done, cutting the voucher amount is a lot simpler. The Ryan/Wyden plan also weakens Medicare by allowing private insurance companies to cherry-pick the lowest risk patients, increasing the costs for those who remain in the program. The only real “feature” of this plan is that it allows seniors to choose private health insurance, something they already can do, only now, it’s in the form of low-cost Medicare supplement policies.

I’ll admit that, for a long time, I was taken in by the fact-checking vogue, but after debunking so many of them, I’ve started to believe that the “Lie Of The Year” ought to be “fact-checking” itself.

Here’s Hartmann’s decimation of Politifact‘s argument, from RT America:

Fact-Check, Medicare, Medicare Reform, Paul Ryan, Paul Ryan budget plan, Politifact, PolitiFact.com, Ron Wyden, Ryan budget plan, Ryan-Wyden, Thom Hartmann, Wyden Ryan

Anonymous

Weird. Why would they call that ‘lie’?
http://mediamatters.org/ Leedog

If Ryan’s plan was so great, why did he come out yesterday with new changes to it??

Ryan knew his plan would have ended Medicare (what Republicans want) and was running scared due to the backlash!!

Ryan is a fool!!
Anonymous

Paul Ryan. That’s that Ayatollah Khomeni guy, right Tommy?

Someone’s a little touchy today.
Anonymous

Hartmann also called Rove a Nazi, so there’s that.
OSTL

“Just in time to help shill”

Oh, jeebus. I just about fell out of my chair laughing at the irony!
http://twitter.com/Bennybombom Ben

I smell a Jon Stewart segment about that one….or I hope for one.
Anonymous

In the running also should have been that cutting out corporate largesse from the stupidly legislated Medicare Advantage program that was a gift to corporate funders in the first place, allowing their hooks into ever more tax payer money.

Can’t wait for the attacks from Republicans defending socialism when some Democrat finally has the nerve to propose negotiating bulk prices for drugs and allowing importation.
Anonymous

Thom: Social Security is not a Ponzi scheme.”

Really, Thom?

Nobel Winner in Economics Liberal Paul Krugman:

“Social Security is structured from the point of view of the recipients
as if it were an ordinary retirement plan: what you get out depends on what
you put in. So it does not look like a redistributionist scheme. In practice
it has turned out to be strongly redistributionist, but only because of its
Ponzi game aspect, in which each generation takes more out than it put in.
Well, the Ponzi game will soon be over, thanks to changing demographics, so
that the typical recipient henceforth will get only about as much as he or
she put in (and today’s young may well get less than they put in).”

Nobel Winner in Economics Liberal Paul Samuelson:

“Social Security is squarely based on what has been called the eighth
wonder of the world — compound interest. A growing nation is the
greatest Ponzi game ever contrived.”

Sorry, Thom, I belive the Nobel winnerss and not a trog like you.
Anonymous

Politifact is the same group of nutjobs who gave Jon Stewart a “pants on fire” rating because he used an erroneous claim from the History Channel. Politifact is just another Republican front now, no different from Newsbusters, Newsmax, or Fox News.
Anonymous

To bad that neither Hartman or Tommy Christopher reported on the financial condition of Medicare and Social Security or did the hard research to see really what the debate is all about! No instead they just propagated the nonsense that the democratic leadership has be espousing. Had they actually done the research oh let’s say by reading CBO reports etc. They would have reported that both programs are in serious trouble already and if not aggressively addressed both programs are headed for disaster. But hey!, that would be real reporting, no it is much easier to just report biased talking points and weave a logical web around those biased talking points while leaving any and all pertinent facts our of the conversation… Good Work Tommy!
Anonymous

LOL

Yeah, when something doesn’t conform to your delusional whack job world of ideas, it is a Repub front.

You are one pathetic, benighted, lost ,soulless lib.
Anonymous

One question. If the plan is “opt-in” and if people can still have the “standard” version of medicare, how in the world is this plan “ending medicare”? Seems to me that anything short of what we have now will be labeled by liberals as an attempt to destroy medicare. Of course the what we have now is unsustainable by most people , but why bother with the small details, huh?
Just some Blow Hard…

I (and it pains me to do this) agree with Stone on this. Politifact is very fair.
Anonymous

Now that is funny Korean Trevor! You should have put up a beverage warning on that post since I nearly spit up my *beverage of choice* while reading it.
Anonymous

It’s easy to take a hard-line position against Medicare and Social Security when you’re covered by the best government plan money can buy. People in Congress are turds.
Pablo

Who?
Anonymous

Politifact has long had a myopic view which is often conservative in it’s views. They have once again proven that fact does not equal truth.
Anonymous

Hey, politifact, back in line!
Anonymous

They’re doing the same thing Fox News does. They’re being fair and balanced by looking at both sides instead of looking for the truth. The objective is to make it appear that the left lies just as much as the right. It’s the same game that John Avlon plays.
ATHF

Russian Times???????

more proof of communist trying to influence the useful idiots of this country.

Do you fools really believe a news organization like The Russian times is really trying to give U.S. citizens propaganda free news?

You talk about destroying a country from the inside out. we all know during the cold war the U.S. had propaganda against the U.S.S.R. but the U.S. was never allowed to set-up a news organization inside Russia and then straight up talk shit about the Russia.

It’s just more proof that the communists are using ours freedoms to win the war from the inside by brainwashing the useful idiots into thinking Communism and Marxism iis the way to go.

oh yeah more proof that Marxists and communist are part of OWS.
Marxism classes being taught in San Diego OWS protests and local community centers located in the low income areas. The event has passed but still go see the proof for yourself:

http://activistsandiego.org/node/3231
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/205347

I have yet to find the conservatives having meeting about good things Marxism or communism has to offer. Why are the progressives teaching Marxism?
expatpatriot

Fair perhaps. Frequently wrong, most certainly.
Anonymous

They’re always trying to find some moral equivilancy where none exists. The right is most often the one that’s wrong. And no matter how you view it the right did vote to make Medicare more costly for the elderly. What upsets me most about this whole episode is that Ron Wyden, a solid Democrat, alliugned himself with Ryan on this bill…..disgusting.
Pablo

Because the Senate wouldn’t even debate it, genius. Did you notice he’s got a Democrat Senator along on this one? Ever heard of politics?
http://mediamatters.org/ Leedog

It was dead on arrival in the Senate!! Republicans later ran away from Ryan and his plan because of the Democrats saying Ryan wanted to kill Medicare, which was true!!

I know he worked with a Democrat on the NEW plan, but I was talking about the old plan, and if it was so perfect, there would have been no need to change it!!

We both know Ryan’s first plan was a failure!!
Anonymous

Everything you write is a lie…
Anonymous

Go F yourself you pathetic right winged idiot…
Anonymous

RT- america+thom hartmann=truth gop tv=propaganda=lies
Anonymous

You are using Russia Today as a reference? The channel spewing propaganda from Putin? Are you kidding me? I live in Latvia and the Latvians laugh at the garbage put out by this state (as in Russia) controlled channel. If Medicare is GOING BROKE as per the actuary who came out on his own and said it was–and going quickly, Ryan’s plan is better than nothing. My god. I know this site could be a joke, but Tommy, RT? Jezus.
Pablo

Everything is dead on arrival in the Senate, moron. Have you been asleep for the last year?
http://mediamatters.org/ Leedog

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