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"The Scream" by Edvard PolitiFact Munch. (photo: mrdorkesq)
Apparently, if I blow up your Ferrari but I replace it with an old Honda Civic, I haven’t actually destroyed your car; at least according to the bizarre logic used by PolitiFact.
PolitiFact is claiming that the DCCC lied when it stated that the Paul Ryan Budget recently passed by House Republicans would end Medicare. From PolitiFact:
Yes, the Republican plan would be a huge change to the current program, and seniors would have to pay more for their health plans if it becomes law. Democrats, including President Barack Obama, have said they are strongly opposed to the plan.
But to say the Republicans voted to end Medicare, as the ad does, is a major exaggeration. All seniors would continue to be offered coverage under the proposal, and the program’s budget would increase every year.
[...]
Democrats, including Obama, have said the plan would end Medicare “as we know it,” a critical qualifier. But the 30-second ad from the DCCC makes a sweeping claim without that important qualifier .
Medicare is a defined benefits, universal, government-run health insurance program. The Republican budget would end it and replace it with a very different program, one that provides seniors with just a voucher to buy private insurance.
Yes, the Republican proposals would also technically provide some form of health insurance, but just because you replace what you eliminate with something vaguely similar doesn’t change the fact that you destroyed the original. Just because Republicans would call their new program “Medicare” does not make it Medicare. Yet, it appears PolitiFact, with their demand for the qualifier “as we know it,” has decided words have whatever meaning the Republican Party says they do.
This is a truly absurd standard. According to this logic, if I stripped the paint off the canvas of The Scream and had my four-year-old nephew paint a new picture on it that I called “The Scream,” you can’t say I destroyed “The Scream.” You can only say I ended The Scream “as we know it.”
I assume if the Conservative government in the UK replaced their socialized National Health Service with a voucher to buy private insurance, everyone would agree that constitutes ending the NHS, regardless of political PR spin. The way we, the press, the nation, treat the Republican proposal for Medicare should be no different.
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Politi-Not-So-Factual
i’d liken it more to a roller skate with bricks for wheels
There’s nothing the pukes don’t want to destroy, including language itself.
Politifact: The political part is more important than the fact part. That’s why we put it first in our name.
Tell me again why we are supposed to be civil with these cretins?
I don’t think this is a wise tack to take on Medicare because that would be like saying Democrats want to destroy Social Security by raising the caps as Social Security would no longer be a retirement plan where you get out of it what you contribute into it. There is of course policy reasons to support or oppose changes to Medicare or Social Security, but saying Medicare or Social Security would cease to exist isn’t a good way of broaching the subject.
More weasel words.
I have no idea why we should, they are the embodiment of GREED and lack of any compassion for their fellow man/women! Randians everyone one of them!!
Thanks for the update. Of course PolitiNOTFACTUAL will poop out some demented rightwing spin job to fool the rubes. It’s their job after all. They are disgusting slimey bastards, but I see it much like Breitbart and his easy-to-see-that-they’re-edited videos.
Anymore, the so-called “Rs” aren’t really even bothering to mask their brazeness, lies and spin. Why should they? Citizens are either asleep at the wheel, the T-GOP is reliable 27% who’ll got along with it, and us dfh’s have been so marginalized that they could care less what we think.
This would be so easy to illustrate in a simple example that could be used over and over in a speech and follow-up commercial that would guarantee Barry the WH and save the program.
“Okay, under the R plan, 10 years from today, you’ll get a voucher for about, let’s say, $2,000 dollars. My experts tell me that a private insurance plan with the same coverage as Medicare will cost about $5,000 in ten years. So, here’s the deal. Congressman Ryan wants you to pay an extra $3,000 for the care that the current Medicare program would cover. Get the picture? That’s how he wants to save Medicare. … (Big smile and chuckle) … Does Mr. Ryan feel that middle-aged Americans are stupid?”
Or something to that effect.
*not intended to be a PolitiFactual statement
The lying Republicans and lying Blue Dog Democrats want to replace Medicare with their version, Medi-Scare.
Politifact is guilty of the same problem they cite for the DCCC.
1. DCCC says, it ends Medicare
2. Poli says, not, it’s still there for some, so that’s an exaggeration.
3. But wait, the new replacement system continues as the old system gets replaced as people die off.
4. so eventually, the ryan plan totally ends Medicare in the way Poli defines it.
They can’t even follow their own logic.
Facts have a well known liberal bias.
If it is not Medicare “as we know it” then it ain’t Medicare. Understand?
Very nice! or not.
St Pete Florida is not a solid GOP area -so I assume the Boss of the Politifact folks in directing his right wing views into the discussion.
The politifact people are full of shit, i quit reading them a long time ago, i seen other political shit they put out.
Destroying language is always the first step, as we learned from Orwell. And Carlin, too.
It’s not something to worry about. I don’t think most people actually give a shit about–or have even heard of–politifact.
Most people may not know of ‘Politifact’ but the Beltway Villagers do. And those are the people who will use the framing presented by Politifact to justify action or inaction on this issue or any other issue.
So it is absolutely essential that there be push back against BS, wherever it occurs
Look at their “meters” to rate the Obama administration and the GOP pledges. Obameter has a Broken Promises graph, but not the GOP. Their promises are just “stalled” or “in the works”. Sorry, if it’s been a bill, voted on and didn’t pass in the Senate, isn’t it “failed”?