'Lie of the Year' on Health Care

'Lie Of The Year': Democrats Want A 'Government Takeover Of Health Care'
Categories: Campaign tactics, Health care

08:18 am

December 17, 2010

by Mark Memmott

The competition was stiff and the nominees were from both sides of the political aisle, but the nonpartisan judges at PolitiFact have decided that the claim from conservatives that President Obama and his supporters are pushing for a "government takeover of health care" was the campaign 2010 "lie of the year."

PolitiFact.com
PolitiFact's "lie of the year": A dubious award.
PolitiFact editor Bill Adair told Morning Edition's Steve Inskeep that the charge is "just ridiculously false ... the plan relies on private insurance companies (and) in fact private insurance companies are actually going to end up with more business because of the law. ... Yet it was a refrain we heard again and again. It was definitely the most pervasive falsehood of the year."

Full story and videos at:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2010/12/17/132132064/lie-of-the-year-democrats-want-a-government-takeover-of-health-care

So many of the Journal's local "Politi-fact" articles have been so full of pungent, steaming piles.

Like Bernie Sanders somehow wasn't telling the truth about Exxon-Mobil's profits and tax give-backs from the government. Because that only took into account that one tax year, Sen. Sanders was "missing the big picture."

But they never do the math on oil company profits to count one penny of the pork that oil company's get before they drill a single well, as direct government subsidies ('socialism for wealthy corporations'); nor do their numbers include depletion allowance write-offs or any income off-shored to foreign accounts. Or in the case of BP or other polluters, money they don't have to pay back, dollar for dollar, when they cause environmental catastrophes.