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Obama vs. Joe Wilson on the Truth-o-Meter
Joe G. noted earlier that Joe Wilson scored very poorly on Politifact’s Truth-o-meter. Since that post, there have been five more targeting Rep. Wilson, including Kathy’s moderately titled, Is there a politician lower than Joe Wilson?
I’m guessing Kathy has heard of Charlie Rangel.
Anyhow, I’m not here to defend Joe Wilson, who most people never heard of until yesterday. I’m here to look at how President Obama scores on the Truth-o-Meter. After last night’s speech, Politifact awarded President Obama a Barely True for pretending that Democratic reform bills actually incorporated Republican ideas. In fact, Democrats accepted some technical amendments from the GOP.
Politifact also awarded the President a flat-out False for saying that preventive care “saves money”.
In a very generous ruling, Politifact awarded Obama a True for saying
Nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have.
But that’s just some tricky wordplay, since the real issue is whether government incentives will lead your employer to take away your coverage. That’s why, less than a month ago, Politifact awarded the President a Half-true for insisting for the umpteenth time that “If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.”
America is deciding right now whether reform its entire healthcare system, which accounts for roughly one-eighth of the entire economy. So what’s more important? Whether an obscure congressman bends the truth, or whether the President of the United States bends it again and again?
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26 Responses to “Obama vs. Joe Wilson on the Truth-o-Meter”
Nice analysis. Wilson shouldn't get off free for his rudeness and Democrats are allowed to have some fun with it just like Republicans had fun with Van Jones, but its all perspective in more ways than one. Nice to see a reminder of keeping our eye on the big ball.
It may be true that the Republicans may not have much in the legislation, but I don't know what they want to put it. It seems that the Republicans wanted the Dems to take everything out, rather than add their own ideas in.
Of course there was the whole issue of the 'death panels' which was added in by the Republicans in the Senate bill. But it was also taken out because other Republicans didn't like it, even though they themselves claimed to support legislation which would allow people to have these end of life consultations with their doctors. The deletion of this should certainly count as a Republican contribution. The Dems should not be held responsible for not including Republican proposals if the left hands of Republicans don't know what their right hands are doing when the GOP adds stuff in only to take it out.
Speaking of which… when the GOP controlled the presidency and congress they did not allow the Dems to even make proposals or amendments. Bush called the Dems obstructionists if they wanted to change something. These days if the Republicans can't get their act together to make cogent amendments, then that's their fault.
As far as Rangel… I don't understand why he's still around. I guess he's Pelosi's pet.
As far as this statement, “So what’s more important? Whether an obscure congressman bends the truth, or whether the President of the United States bends it again and again?”
Well… the GOP all summer has been telling flat out lies, including the death panel claims. I'm not sure that you can say that the only fault of this “obscure congressman” is that he bent the truth one time.
I went to his website which is basically a page asking for donations. There's no other information nor links there.
http://www.joewilsonforcongress.com
His website does say this, ” I've been under attack by the liberals for months and they’ve done everything they can to quiet my very vocal opposition to more government interference in Americans' lives.”
Yet here's the response from Pelosi:
“It's time for us to talk about healthcare, not Joe Wilson,” said Pelosi, D-Calif.
One option Democrats considered was censure. Pelosi nixed censure, as well as a call to require Wilson to apologize on the House floor.
“I'm on to healthcare reform. I'm not going to discuss Joe Wilson,” she said. “I think his action spoke for itself. He has apologized. He will figure out what is appropriate for him to do.”
I don't think that response is an attack by Dems on Joe Wilson. It shows that Pelosi is the bigger man and wants to move on while Joe wants to continue his petty bickering for his own political gain.
This is from the same article I found the Pelosi quote in. This is said by Joe Wilson: “The supporters of the government takeover of health care, and the liberals who want to give healthcare to illegals, are using my opposition as an excuse to distract from the critical questions being raised about this poorly conceived plan,” he said in a video posted on YouTube.
Here's the link to the article where I found the Pelosi and the Wilson quote:
http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewiStock…
Who seems more reasonable and factual?
Politifact should give themselves a “Half Truth” for their take on whether preventive care saves money (“It may make sense and save lives, but does it save money? Experts say no.”)
The New England Journal of Medicine article that Politifact used as one of their sources, states that while “sweeping statements about the cost-saving potential of prevention… are overreaching… studies have concluded that preventing illness can in some cases save money but in other cases can add to health care costs.” Furthermore they specifically pointed to “screening for colorectal cancer” (one of the examples that Obama gave) as a measure that can “reduce mortality either at low cost or at a cost savings.”
The trick, of course, is to not screen everybody for everything, but to target only those who have a threshold risk of a particular disease. Ultimately that's easier said than done.
Newsflash: There's no guarantee right now that you can keep your insurance if you like it. You're at the whim of your employer and if they want to drop your insurance, they can do it. As is happening to 14,000 people every day.
It's a serious nitpick to say people could still lose their insurance under the proposed reform plans when it's already happening to people every day. At least if reform passes, these people will have more affordable options available on the insurance exchange.
Just about every “fact” put out by either side is a half-truth.
Let's just get that said right off the bat.
Both sides take raw figures and slant them whichever way they choose – it's called spin.
Over 60% of those polled in Canada rate their healthcare system as inadequate.
You will find similar numbers in the UK. And although I haven't find them yet, I'm sure you'll find a similar trend in all the other industrialized countries with socialized medicine.
Meanwhile, here in the USA, neither party is actually attacking the PROBLEM. Much like the doctors and pharmaceutical corporations, they only wish to treat the symptoms.
The problem is/are fraud, the insurance and pharmaceutical corporations, lawsuit abuse, and the entire healthcare industry.
The answers: sweeping regulation of the insurance, pharmateutical, and healthcare industries; tort reform, and oversight.
The only problem is that each one of the above has a democrat or a republican in their pockets.
As far as the illegal immigrants go- it says they have access to it, but they'd still have to pay like everyone else, so its in effect a de facto tax to them. The GOP should be happy about that. But that's not the issue- for them it boils down to nativist entitlement.
Like Max Balk-us and his posse. Corporate donors demanding quid pro quo.
100% agree for once. That why I was happy in 2006 when the Democrats took over Congress with vows to “drain the swamp”. Unfortunately they haven't lived up to their promise and have just added their own sewage to it. Nancy Pelosi has become Tom Delay. and Barack Obama has become George Bush. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
It's unfortunate Americans are motivated by hyperbole and propaganda, but as JD observed, it's been a longstanding tradition in politics, which is to say it is hardly going to disappear overnight. That said, the republicans have steadily been raising that art (think Jackson Pollack) to a new level in the 21st. All cherry-picking and false equivalence aside, there is one party that is making at least some genuine effort to address longterm, serious problems (environment, healthcare, energy, etc.) and another that seems to be doing little more than running interference for a declining status quo, and cheering on a steady stream of misinformation. There is much work to be done and it will take unity to accomplish, not obstruction and demonizing.
“Over 60% of those polled in Canada rate their healthcare system as inadequate.
You will find similar numbers in the UK. And although I haven't found them yet, I'm sure you'll find a similar trend in all the other industrialized countries with socialized medicine.”
This notion that foreigners with socialized medicine are pining for the US system is complete bull.
“A Harris-Decima poll published last month found that 82 percent of Canadians believe their system outdoes America’s, and 70 percent felt it was working very well or well. The telephone poll of 1,000 Canadians was conducted from June 4 to 8 with a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.”
“That why I was happy in 2006 when the Democrats took over Congress with vows to 'drain the swamp'. “
Heh, heh. As if Rangel (“I have a problem with pay-as-you-go”) and Company, Swamp Makers, would drain it!
Thanks for that dgfunk. Polls consistently show that those with single payer systems are happier with their systems than Americans are.
but hey, I see some cost savings here. Republicans can stop using preventive measures like mammograms and cholesterol testing. Since what they care about is money and the CBO says the odds are against preventive care costing them less, it's an easy decision. Of course another reason it might cost less is that they'll die younger…
If it's bottom-scraping that's the order of the day, do a complete job of it: Minorities and poorer people will die earlier than affluent whites (like the many “progressives” who want to re-engineer things to match their dreams).
Leonidas, “That why I was happy in 2006 when the Democrats took over Congress with vows to “drain the swamp”. Unfortunately they haven't lived up to their promise and have just added their own sewage to it.”
Yes, and I would prefer at least one chamber in Congress to be controlled by the GOP. However the GOP these days is intent on strictly advancing their own political agenda (as they were and did under Bush) at the expense of the country. I also don't like the fact that many conservatives hope that Obama fails. As much as I hated Bush, I never wished for him to fail. Whenever he did something hair-brained, which was pretty much every day, I hoped that I would be wrong.
As far as Pelosi = Delay. I wouldn't go that far but I understand your point. I think Obama has actually reigned her in somewhat. But the GOP attacks on her and on Dems obscure this. (See my above post re the Wilson embarrassment…. whereas Pelosi wants to move forward without censure of Wilson, Wilson is still riling up hatred of Dems and claiming that they're using his outburst…. that's not true except of his direct opponent and both Wilson and his opponent are using Wilson's embarrassment for their political gain- and I wouldn't expect anything less.)
As far as Obama = Bush. Ha! No way. Bush demonized Democrats and anyone who disagreed with him he pretty much labeled a terrorist or terrorist sympathizer. Obama is not demonizing the GOP and he speaks about “opponents” of the healthcare and their actions. I have not heard Obama actually say that Republicans are obstructionists.
Bush demonized Democrats and anyone who disagreed with him he pretty much labeled a terrorist or terrorist sympathizer.
I would love to see your collection of quotes where Bush actually said those things. Plenty of people said them on his behalf, I'll grant you, or said things that could be interpreted that way. Just as Obama now has plenty of people saying things on his behalf which are offensive about his opponents. For some reason though, you blame Bush but seem to think that Obama is really above this and other people just are acting badly but it doesn't reflect on him.
I don't understand the point you're making about Pelosi at all. I think it's pretty clear that even she doesn't have the chutzpah to invoke censure against a House member for calling the president a liar when that would inevitably bring criticism back on herself for calling CIA leaders liars.
Problem is once the CIA finally “found” certain programs that had not yet been released to her and the others it means they were lying, or at least conveniently obscuring or hiding things.
“Over 60% of those polled in Canada rate their healthcare system as inadequate.”
I'd like to see that poll.
This one http://www.medicare.ca./new-poll-shows-overwhel…
A new poll conducted by Nanos Research points to overwhelming support (86.2%) for strengthening public health care rather than expanding for-profit services. “With more than eight in ten Canadians supporting public solutions to make public healthcare stronger, there is compelling evidence that Canadians across all demographics would prefer a public over a for-profit healthcare system,” said Nik Nanos, President of Nanos Research. Nanos Research was commissioned on behalf of the Canadian Health Coalition (CHC) to conduct a random telephone survey of 1001 Canadians between April 25th and May 3rd. The margin of accuracy for a sample of 1,001 is ±3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
If you want to look at health care views in various nations (views of their systems, in particular), try:
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1293/health-care-pu…
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1317/would-american…
http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/in…
http://www.gallup.com/poll/122393/OECD-Countrie…
http://www.gallup.com/poll/8056/healthcare-syst…
[Americans in Canada, USA vs. Canada]
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/story.html?i…
http://www.ipsos-na.com/news/client/act_dsp_pdf…
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And how about the cost of simply calling your doctor and having him prescribe you an antibiotic early on for a rather nasty chest cold versus the cost of having to be hospitalized for pneumonia? I'd say that's worth considering…
[...] Obama vs. Joe Wilson on the Truth-o-Meter (themoderatevoice.com) [...]
Don't twist my words, brother.
You may be correct that those polled don't want the American system.
What I said does not contradict that. I said that they are “dissatisfied with their own system”
They don't want ours and they don't want what Pelosi, Reid, & Obama are trying to give us.
Thus, there must be a third option. And that includes what I wrote above.
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