While there has been plenty to find fault with in the revelation that the IRS targeted some tea party groups seeking tax exempt status, some of the Republican rhetoric has been an overreach.
Republican Overreach on IRS
Issues: health care
Debatable Facts in South Carolina
In a spirited debate between South Carolina congressional candidates Elizabeth Colbert Busch and Mark Sanford, we found a couple of misleading statements — and one seemingly contradictory exchange about Sanford’s voting record that isn’t.
Congress and an Exemption from ‘Obamacare’?
Is it true that there are bills in Congress that would exempt members and their staffs and families from buying into “Obamacare”?
Health Insurance Premium Spin
A new analysis on the Affordable Care Act prompts Republicans and the White House to trade misleading claims about the law’s impact on insurance premiums. Predictably, one side says they’ll go up; the other says they’ll go down. But both are stretching the facts, just as they’ve been doing since 2010, before the law was even enacted.
Bachmann’s Killer Health Care Claims
Rep. Michele Bachmann claims that “vulnerable women, vulnerable children, vulnerable senior citizens” will all “pay more” under the federal health care law and get “less” in return.
GOP Budget Revives ‘Obamacare’ Claims
The release of the House GOP budget by Rep. Paul Ryan has sparked a resurgence of false and misleading claims about the Affordable Care Act, which the budget seeks to largely repeal. On the Sunday talk shows, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the head of the Democratic National Committee, and Sen. Ron Johnson, a Republican from Wisconsin, each distorted the facts regarding revenues raised in the health care law. And Ryan wrongly said the law would take money away from Medicare and ration benefits for seniors.
Obama’s and Rubio’s Health Care Claims
Managing Editor Lori Robertson tells Connecticut Public Broadcasting about President Barack Obama’s and Sen. Marco Rubio’s health care claims in the State of the Union address and Republican response. Obama said the Affordable Care Act “is helping to slow the growth of health care costs.” Experts say it has helped, but the slower growth began before the law was passed and is due to the down economy, as well. Rubio said that “now, some people are losing the health insurance they were happy with,”
Group’s ‘Obamacare Tax Form’ Evades Facts
A conservative group misleads taxpayers on the Affordable Care Act and the Internal Revenue Service’s future role in enforcing it. Americans for Tax Reform posted a “projected” IRS tax form on its website that claims to “help families and tax specialists prepare” for new tax provisions under the health care law. But ATR makes several false claims:
The group claims taxpayers will have to disclose “personal identifying health information” to the IRS to prove they have insurance.
Overselling the Affordable Care Act
At the Democratic National Convention, former President Bill Clinton went too far when he suggested that the Affordable Care Act was the reason the growth in health care spending has been low in the past two years. On Connecticut Public Broadcasting, Managing Editor Lori Robertson explains that the slow economy is the main reason.
For more, see our Sept. 6 article “Our Clinton Nightmare.”
Obama’s Stump Speech
It’s the oldest form of political communication. Before there was Twitter or Facebook, before there were 30-second television ads, or super PACs, or even radio or newspapers — there was the stump speech. Ancient Greek politicians spoke directly to citizens …