Lie of the year, 2011 yeah it's democrats

[DaGoose]

Aetna and Cigna have always been private companies. When were they "privatized?"

He's talking about private companies getting their hooks into more and more of the senior healthcare business.

So "privatized" means trying to grow your business?

It's about the 80 year old grandmother having to fight tooth and nail (or have someone fight for her) to get her healthcare bills paid by companies whose business model, whose means of making as much profit as they can,

is based on collecting as much premium as possible and paying as few claims as possible.

So the fact that they don't give it away for free means they are evil?

Is the grocery store evil because grandma has to "fight tooth and nail" to get food? Can you name one company who's business model doesn't include making as much as they can while keeping their expenses as low as possible?

Insurance companies are a different animal. Rarely does a business trying to maximize profits end up costing people their lives.

 

[EriktheRed]

He's talking about private companies getting their hooks into more and more of the senior healthcare business.

So "privatized" means trying to grow your business?

It's about the 80 year old grandmother having to fight tooth and nail (or have someone fight for her) to get her healthcare bills paid by companies whose business model, whose means of making as much profit as they can,

is based on collecting as much premium as possible and paying as few claims as possible.

So the fact that they don't give it away for free means they are evil?

Is the grocery store evil because grandma has to "fight tooth and nail" to get food? Can you name one company who's business model doesn't include making as much as they can while keeping their expenses as low as possible?

Insurance companies are a different animal. Rarely does a business trying to maximize profits end up costing people their lives.

Another way to put it is they maximize profits by doing their best not to give their customers what they paid for.

 

[mudwhistle]

Well, I didn't think this would happen, but I utterly disagree with PolitiFact on this one. Saying the GOP voted to end Medicare is an accurate statement.

The only way it isn't an accurate statement is if you think getting rid of your dog named Spot and replacing it with a chair named Spot means the chair can suddenly fetch.

Seems all of the lying libs on this site agree with your lying.

Obama signed into law taking $500 billion from the Medicare fund......so he did more than vote to end Medicare......he defunded it.

The libs have been lying to us for years using scare tactics to trick the voters into voting for them, then when they get the majority they need to prevent the Republicans from doing it, what do they do????

Do exactly what they accused the Republicans of. It's all in his Affordable Health Care Act.

 

[The Rabbi]

In other words, Democrats have stated their intent to fight tooth and nail any attempt to reform the program and save this nation from bankruptcy.

The Democrats already passed a series of Medicare reforms, nearly two years ago.

P.S.

On the other hand, growth rates in Medicare claim costs hit yet another low, rising at an annual rate of +1.97% as measured by the S&P Healthcare Economic Medicare Index. The S&P Healthcare Economic Hospital Medicare Index also posted a record low annual rate of +0.71% in the year ending September 2011. This is a staggering 7.59 percentage points lower than the highest annual growth rate of +8.30% recorded for this index just two years ago in August 2009.

So slowing the rate of growth=saving Medicare? On what planet?

More Realistic Medicare Spending Projections - By Veronique de Rugy - The Corner - National Review Online

 

[bigrebnc1775]

Just about anything that Obama has said in the last year would qualify for lie of the year.

The only way obama would be able to stop telling a lie, keep his mouth shut.

 

[rdean]

Care to provide an example of that?

Aetna?

Cigna?

Did that help?

Aetna and Cigna have always been private companies. When were they "privatized?"

.. it makes some people millions and many people poorer.

I was responding to this SFBs.

Potter, for instance, recalled a trip on a corporate jet from Philadelphia, where CIGNA is headquartered, to Connecticut, where the company's health insurance business is based in Bloomfield. During the flight, he was served lunch on gold-rimmed china with a gold-plated knife and fork.

ECRC Physical Therapy

http://articles.courant.com/2009-06...t_1_health-insurers-insurance-practices-cigna

 

[The Rabbi]

Aetna?

Cigna?

Did that help?

Aetna and Cigna have always been private companies. When were they "privatized?"

.. it makes some people millions and many people poorer.

I was responding to this SFBs.

Potter, for instance, recalled a trip on a corporate jet from Philadelphia, where CIGNA is headquartered, to Connecticut, where the company's health insurance business is based in Bloomfield. During the flight, he was served lunch on gold-rimmed china with a gold-plated knife and fork.

ECRC Physical Therapy

Stinging Words For Health Insurers - Hartford Courant

You mean like Microsoft? Or kroger? Or any otehr company, because people are always poorer and worse off when they spend money. Right?

 

[blastoff]

Just about anything that Obama has said in the last year would qualify for lie of the year.

Time for Big, Bigger, Biggest categories for this clown?

 

[bigrebnc1775]

Politifact's lie of the year is the joke of the year. So much for relying on Politifact to tell the truth. FactCheck.org, here I come.

It's shocking that politifact would come out against obama this way, it has basicly covered for him for three years. And as for fact check you might as well go to thewhitehouse.gov. both would be the same talking cover obama's ass bullshit.

 

[rdean]

Aetna and Cigna have always been private companies. When were they "privatized?"

.. it makes some people millions and many people poorer.

I was responding to this SFBs.

Potter, for instance, recalled a trip on a corporate jet from Philadelphia, where CIGNA is headquartered, to Connecticut, where the company's health insurance business is based in Bloomfield. During the flight, he was served lunch on gold-rimmed china with a gold-plated knife and fork.

ECRC Physical Therapy

Stinging Words For Health Insurers - Hartford Courant

You mean like Microsoft? Or kroger? Or any otehr company, because people are always poorer and worse off when they spend money. Right?

You can't argue with people like you. Your "points" are "pointless".

Microsoft sells something.

Citgo doesn't own any hospitals or employ doctors or nurses. They are "middlemen". Administrators ONLY. They skim money off insurance policies. They don't make anything or do anything that doctors and nurses couldn't do on their own.

You might want to "rethink" your position. Doesn't seem to be a very good one.

 

[The Rabbi]

.. it makes some people millions and many people poorer.

I was responding to this SFBs.

Potter, for instance, recalled a trip on a corporate jet from Philadelphia, where CIGNA is headquartered, to Connecticut, where the company's health insurance business is based in Bloomfield. During the flight, he was served lunch on gold-rimmed china with a gold-plated knife and fork.

ECRC Physical Therapy

Stinging Words For Health Insurers - Hartford Courant

You mean like Microsoft? Or kroger? Or any otehr company, because people are always poorer and worse off when they spend money. Right?

You can't argue with people like you. Your "points" are "pointless".

Microsoft sells something.

Citgo doesn't own any hospitals or employ doctors or nurses. They are "middlemen". Administrators ONLY. They skim money off insurance policies. They don't make anything or do anything that doctors and nurses couldn't do on their own.

You might want to "rethink" your position. Doesn't seem to be a very good one.

Citgo is an oil company. They certainly sell something.
You probably mean Cigna. Cigna provides insurance. They are not "middlemen" as they sell a product, namely insurance.
By your "logic" lawyers, accountants and engineers are middlemen too.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

I have caught them in what I consider to be inaccuracies, but I think that rating opinions and political hyperbole as true, or false, is highly inflammatory.

If you can think of any particular inaccuracies I'd love to see them. I'm sure there are some, but I haven't noticed any and I'm curious about them.

Some of the statements Politifact rates are indeed, as Kyl would put it, not intended to be factual statements. Again, though, I think that if you read their full analysis you'll generally end up better informed about the facts, even if the statements themselves pass beyond the factual. I certainly wouldn't consider what Politifact does to be more inflammatory than general reportage.


The Economist, in their analysis of Politifact's decision (Politics and lies: Fact-checking the fact-checkers | The Economist) also points out that an inaccuracy is not necessarily a deliberate inaccuracy (although "lie" does imply intent to deceive).

Here is one example.

PolitiFact | Rand Paul says federal workers paid $120,000, private-sector workers only $60,000

Their argument that most people do not think of benefits on a par with salary is complete hokum, and rating Paul's statement a lie by claiming that most people would not think about benefits when hearing that is indicative of their bias in favor of the left in rating statements.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

From your fucking article:

Under the Ryan plan, future beneficiaries would be given a credit and invited to shop for an approved plan on a Medicare health insurance exchange. It received overwhelming support from Republicans in a House vote on a budget blueprint.

That would make it a "voucher" program.

The entire reason medicare started was because old people couldn't get help. You Republicans really disgust me. The majority of your dirty party is over 60. You're gonna need medicare more than anyone else and you talk about turning it into a "voucher" program with would make it NOT medicare.

What is wrong with these Republicans? Are they fucking BRAIN Damaged?

It is not a voucher program, it is a premium support program.

Well, if you really want to be accurate, it is a PARTIAL premium support program. Only part of the premium is supported and that part gets smaller and smaller every year because the support is tied to the cost of living, not the cost of health care.

First, where in the world do you get the idea that a premium support program is supposed to cover all the costs of your premiums if you want extra coverage. The plan is clearly designed to cover basic needs, and it allows you to contribute more to get more coverage.

Second, the plan actually increases payments as inflation goes up.

Third, the idea is to get the cost of health care to stop going up as fast as it does.

Fourth, that makes everything you said a lie.

 

[ladyliberal]

I have caught them in what I consider to be inaccuracies, but I think that rating opinions and political hyperbole as true, or false, is highly inflammatory.

If you can think of any particular inaccuracies I'd love to see them. I'm sure there are some, but I haven't noticed any and I'm curious about them.

Some of the statements Politifact rates are indeed, as Kyl would put it, not intended to be factual statements. Again, though, I think that if you read their full analysis you'll generally end up better informed about the facts, even if the statements themselves pass beyond the factual. I certainly wouldn't consider what Politifact does to be more inflammatory than general reportage.


The Economist, in their analysis of Politifact's decision (Politics and lies: Fact-checking the fact-checkers | The Economist) also points out that an inaccuracy is not necessarily a deliberate inaccuracy (although "lie" does imply intent to deceive).

Here is one example.

PolitiFact | Rand Paul says federal workers paid $120,000, private-sector workers only $60,000

Their argument that most people do not think of benefits on a par with salary is complete hokum, and rating Paul's statement a lie by claiming that most people would not think about benefits when hearing that is indicative of their bias in favor of the left in rating statements.

I think you and I agree on how Politifact works, we just disagree on the wording. What I said was:

I think that if you read their full analysis you'll generally end up better informed about the facts.

In other posts, I have said that Politifact's raw rankings (in the example you gave, "False") can be misleading if one does not read the analysis.

I think that both of these things are true in the given case. You seem to believe that federal employees earn roughly twice as much as private sector employees on average in total compensation. Someone who looked only at Politifact's rating might think they were saying that was false. Someone reading their analysis would see that they said

According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, a federal statistics-gathering agency, federal worker compensation in 2009 averaged $123,049, which was double the private-sector average of $61,051. That's a gap of almost $62,000 -- and is pretty close to what Paul said on This Week.

So, as I said, I think someone who read their full analysis would end up better informed.

Incidentally, while I concede that Politifact's ratings can be misleading, I'm not sure there is a better way to do them. If one becomes excessively literal-minded, one has to rate such statements as "She [a Texas mother] told me [Bachmann] her daughter suffered mental retardation as a result of that vaccine" as true (rather than false, as Politifact in fact rated it) no matter how misleading they are.

(Regarding whether their argument is "hokum", I would say it is plausible but unsupported. I think most salaried workers, when asked how much they made in a year, would not include the monetary value of their benefits. Still, Politifact didn't prove that. My point, though, is that after reading their analysis you know they didn't prove it- they didn't manufacture proof.)

 

[Bfgrn]

Politifact, which is supposed to police false claims in politics, has announced its Lie of the Year — and it’s a statement that happens to be true, the claim that Republicans have voted to end Medicare.

Steve Benen in the link above explains it, but let me just repeat the basics. Republicans voted to replace Medicare with a voucher system to buy private insurance — and not just that, a voucher system in which the value of the vouchers would systematically lag the cost of health care, so that there was no guarantee that seniors would even be able to afford private insurance.

The new scheme would still be called “Medicare”, but it would bear little resemblance to the current system, which guarantees essential care to all seniors.

How is this not an end to Medicare? And given all the actual, indisputable lies out there, how on earth could saying that it is be the “Lie of the year”?

The answer is, of course, obvious: the people at Politifact are terrified of being considered partisan if they acknowledge the clear fact that there’s a lot more lying on one side of the political divide than on the other. So they’ve bent over backwards to appear “balanced” — and in the process made themselves useless and irrelevant.

Way to go, guys.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

If you can think of any particular inaccuracies I'd love to see them. I'm sure there are some, but I haven't noticed any and I'm curious about them.

Some of the statements Politifact rates are indeed, as Kyl would put it, not intended to be factual statements. Again, though, I think that if you read their full analysis you'll generally end up better informed about the facts, even if the statements themselves pass beyond the factual. I certainly wouldn't consider what Politifact does to be more inflammatory than general reportage.


The Economist, in their analysis of Politifact's decision (Politics and lies: Fact-checking the fact-checkers | The Economist) also points out that an inaccuracy is not necessarily a deliberate inaccuracy (although "lie" does imply intent to deceive).

Here is one example.

PolitiFact | Rand Paul says federal workers paid $120,000, private-sector workers only $60,000

Their argument that most people do not think of benefits on a par with salary is complete hokum, and rating Paul's statement a lie by claiming that most people would not think about benefits when hearing that is indicative of their bias in favor of the left in rating statements.

I think you and I agree on how Politifact works, we just disagree on the wording. What I said was:

I think that if you read their full analysis you'll generally end up better informed about the facts.

In other posts, I have said that Politifact's raw rankings (in the example you gave, "False") can be misleading if one does not read the analysis.

I think that both of these things are true in the given case. You seem to believe that federal employees earn roughly twice as much as private sector employees on average in total compensation. Someone who looked only at Politifact's rating might think they were saying that was false. Someone reading their analysis would see that they said

According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, a federal statistics-gathering agency, federal worker compensation in 2009 averaged $123,049, which was double the private-sector average of $61,051. That's a gap of almost $62,000 -- and is pretty close to what Paul said on This Week.

So, as I said, I think someone who read their full analysis would end up better informed.

Incidentally, while I concede that Politifact's ratings can be misleading, I'm not sure there is a better way to do them. If one becomes excessively literal-minded, one has to rate such statements as "She [a Texas mother] told me [Bachmann] her daughter suffered mental retardation as a result of that vaccine" as true (rather than false, as Politifact in fact rated it) no matter how misleading they are.

(Regarding whether their argument is "hokum", I would say it is plausible but unsupported. I think most salaried workers, when asked how much they made in a year, would not include the monetary value of their benefits. Still, Politifact didn't prove that. My point, though, is that after reading their analysis you know they didn't prove it- they didn't manufacture proof.)

They do not manufacture evidence, they carefully select people who support their positions, and ignore those who disagree.

 

[AVG-JOE]

PolitiFact | Lie of the Year 2011: 'Republicans voted to end Medicare'

Republicans muscled a budget through the House of Representatives in April that they said would take an important step toward reducing the federal deficit. Introduced by U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the plan kept Medicare intact for people 55 or older, but dramatically changed the program for everyone else by privatizing it and providing government subsidies.

Democrats pounced. Just four days after the party-line vote, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee released a Web ad that said seniors will have to pay $12,500 more for health care "because Republicans voted to end Medicare."

Sure the Dems politicized that budget, exactly as should be expected.

And while certain high level responses to that budget may have been closer to bullshit than spin, I disagree that it's the lie of the year. Plenty of better candidates for that on both sides of the aisle.

 

[AVG-JOE]

Politifact, which is supposed to police false claims in politics, has announced its Lie of the Year — and it’s a statement that happens to be true, the claim that Republicans have voted to end Medicare.

Steve Benen in the link above explains it, but let me just repeat the basics. Republicans voted to replace Medicare with a voucher system to buy private insurance — and not just that, a voucher system in which the value of the vouchers would systematically lag the cost of health care, so that there was no guarantee that seniors would even be able to afford private insurance.

The new scheme would still be called “Medicare”, but it would bear little resemblance to the current system, which guarantees essential care to all seniors.

How is this not an end to Medicare? And given all the actual, indisputable lies out there, how on earth could saying that it is be the “Lie of the year”?

The answer is, of course, obvious: the people at Politifact are terrified of being considered partisan if they acknowledge the clear fact that there’s a lot more lying on one side of the political divide than on the other. So they’ve bent over backwards to appear “balanced” — and in the process made themselves useless and irrelevant.

Way to go, guys.

That pretty much sums it up.

 

[AVG-JOE]

Citgo is an oil company. They certainly sell something.
You probably mean Cigna. Cigna provides insurance. They are not "middlemen" as they sell a product, namely insurance.
By your "logic" lawyers, accountants and engineers are middlemen too.

The "product" provided by any insurance company is a bureaucracy to track money.

We pay the health insurance executive class 6 to 8 figures yearly to do something any 10th grader with a computer could do, especially since the hard work is contracted out to a telemarketing boiler room in New Deli.

If we can't have a true public option, those bastards need to be forced to compete at least as intimately as We regulate the Auto Insurance Industry to compete.

And tying our health coverage to our employer was the most stupid idea since 'war', by the way.

 

[The Rabbi]

Citgo is an oil company. They certainly sell something.
You probably mean Cigna. Cigna provides insurance. They are not "middlemen" as they sell a product, namely insurance.
By your "logic" lawyers, accountants and engineers are middlemen too.

The "product" provided by any insurance company is a bureaucracy to track money.

We pay the health insurance executive class 6 to 8 figures yearly to do something any 10th grader with a computer could do.

If we can't have a true public option those bastards need to be forced to compete at least as intimately as We regulate the Auto Insurance Industry to compete.

Tying our health coverage to our employer was also the most stupid idea since war, by the way.

You don't know much about insurance, do you?
I agree that giving a tax break to companies for providing insurance is dumb. People need to be responsible for their health insurance just like their car insurance.

You know one party wanted to allow sales across state lines to increase competition, right?