PolitiFact Spanked on ObamaCare

PoliticalChic

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"So the watchdog news outfit called PolitiFact has decided that its "lie of the year" is the phrase "a government takeover of health care." Ordinarily, lies need verbs and we'd leave the media criticism to others, but the White House has decided that PolitiFact's writ should be heard across the land and those words forever banished to describe ObamaCare.

"We have concluded it is inaccurate to call the plan a government takeover," the editors of PolitiFact announce portentously. "'Government takeover' conjures a European approach where the government owns the hospitals and the doctors are public employees," whereas ObamaCare "is, at its heart, a system that relies on private companies and the free market." PolitiFact makes it sound as if ObamaCare were drawn up by President Friedrich Hayek, with amendments from House Speaker Ayn Rand.

PolitiFact's decree is part of a larger journalistic trend that seeks to recast all political debates as matters of lies, misinformation and "facts," rather than differences of world view or principles. PolitiFact wants to define for everyone else what qualifies as a "fact," though in political debates the facts are often legitimately in dispute.

Evidently, it doesn't count as a government takeover unless the means of production are confiscated. "The government will not seize control of hospitals or nationalize doctors," the editors write, and while "it's true that the law does significantly increase government regulation of health insurers," they'll still be nominally private too.

In fact—if we may use that term without PolitiFact's seal of approval—at the heart of ObamaCare is a vast expansion of federal control over how U.S. health care is financed, and thus delivered. The regulations that PolitiFact waves off are designed to convert insurers into government contractors in the business of fulfilling political demands, with enormous implications for the future of U.S. medicine. All citizens will be required to pay into this system, regardless of their individual needs or preferences. Sounds like a government takeover to us.

PolitiFact is run by the St. Petersburg Times and has marketed itself to other news organizations on the pretense of impartiality. Like other "fact checking" enterprises, its animating conceit is that opinions are what ideologues have, when in reality PolitiFact's curators also have political views and values that influence their judgments about facts and who is right in any debate. "

Review & Outlook: PolitiFiction - WSJ.com
(emphasis mine)

I wonder if friend Greenie saw this....
 
There was no government takeover of healthcare. Period. Denying it isn't going to make the lie true.

obamacare%20chart.jpg
 
The LMSM continue to play Russian Roulette with a 155mm howitzer.

Would you have felt better if they'd made your claim of a government takeover of the auto industry the lie of the year?

How did the government take over the auto industry? What they did was take over GM and Chrysler, but they left Ford, Toyota, and the other companies alone. Or are you going to try and claim the government takeover of GM was not a government takeover?
 
There was no government takeover of healthcare. Period. Denying it isn't going to make the lie true.

Nor is stating that it did not happen going to make the opinion invalid.

you are allowed your own opinion. you are not allowed your own set of facts.

and yes., if the opinion is based on a misstatement of fact, then it is invalid.
 
There was no government takeover of healthcare. Period. Denying it isn't going to make the lie true.

Again.


gov. mandates you will buy it or subsidize it for others


gov. mandates what kind


gov. fines you if you don't do as they tell you to do..




sounds like a takeover to me.
 
There was no government takeover of healthcare. Period. Denying it isn't going to make the lie true.

Nor is stating that it did not happen going to make the opinion invalid.

you are allowed your own opinion. you are not allowed your own set of facts.

and yes., if the opinion is based on a misstatement of fact, then it is invalid.

Why is Politifact is allowed their own set of facts?

They arbitrarily decide that the only way to actually have a government takeover of health care is if the government nationalizes hospitals and hires doctors across the board, then helpfully point out that the new law does none of that. Then they ignore the things the law actually does, which lead some to say that this amounts to a government takeover of health care.

Not a Government Takeover (But Pretty Close) - Hit & Run : Reason Magazine

I am not the one with the set of facts that is made up here. Calling this the lie of the year, after all the lies that came up this year, is like calling the any traffic accident that occurred in 2003 the disaster of the year.
 

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