Politifact: Health care reform does not increase premiums and boot people out of their coverage

[mod mom]

JUST IN CASE YOU HEAR THIS LIE USED:

THE LIE:

The president's health care proposals will cause "most Americans to have their premiums increased, not decreased, and hundreds of millions of people lose their current insurance coverage."
Nancy Pfotenhauer on Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 in an interview on CNN

The Truth-O-Meter Says:

In an interesting display of chutzpah from a television pundit, Republican strategist Nancy Pfotenhauer claimed on CNN that she understood perfectly the president's health care proposals, then proceeded to distort them.

"You've got an extremely talented man here who's a great orator," she said after President Barack Obama's State of the Union address. "I don't think anybody could challenge that. But if there's a sin, it's hubris, and at one point, when he was talking about health care, he literally said, you know, hey, you're not with me, but that's okay. I understand. I just didn't speak clearly enough to you. Like if I slow down and talk in smaller words, maybe you'll get it."

"And so the response is, no, no, you explained it, I heard it and I disagreed with you," she added. "You're talking about a proposal that increases taxes by half a trillion dollars, that cuts Medicare by half a trillion dollars, that causes most Americans to have their premiums increased, not decreased, and hundreds of millions of people to lose their current insurance coverage. This is not something that's good." (That didn't get challenged by host Larry King, who then went to a commercial.)

Pfotenhauer boiled down some complicated issues we've been reporting on for quite a while into a zinger of a soundbite. A bit of what she said was true, but most of this is a significant distortion of Obama's reforms. Here, we're going to rule on the most dramatic part of her claim, that the plans cause "most Americans to have their premiums increased, not decreased, and hundreds of millions of people lose their current insurance coverage."

We contacted Pfotenhauer, who served as an adviser to Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign, and asked what the basis of her claims were. But we didn't hear back.


http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/jan/28/nancy-pfotenhauer/health-care-reform-does-not-increase-premiums-and-/

[mmonk]

1. Exactly. Real reform would have some mechanism to reign

in costs. This bill does not. It just gives some people subsidies that will attempt to mask the increases. When someone tells me I get to keep my insurance, I ask them is that supposed to be a plus?

[ellenfl]

2. "hundreds of millions of people to lose their coverage"?

does she know we are only a nation of 300-350 million? :eyes:

ellen fl