Last week we posted an item on President Obama’s recent claim that health insurance companies were logging record profits. Not true, we discovered, at least not for the largest publicly traded companies. Some of them weren’t even close.
Expect to keep hearing the assertion, however, in a series of seven cookie-cutter radio ads the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is airing around the country this month, targeting Republican House members. Here’s one of them:
In each ad,
Medicare, the federal health insurance program for the elderly and the disabled, covers 46 million Americans. Medicare spending totaled $455 billion in 2008.
Source: Kaiser Family Foundation
Recent comments by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that swastikas and other Nazi imagery had been appearing at lawmakers’ town hall meetings on health care set off furious rounds of tweeting and blogging by outraged conservatives.
The episode began when the California Democrat was asked by a reporter whether she thought there was "legitimate grassroots opposition" at the meetings to congressional health care overhaul plans. She replied:
Pelosi: I think they are Astroturf. You be the judge …
Q: Fox News’ Glenn Beck said that the government will get complete access to your computer and all of your files when you log on to Cars.gov for the Cash for Clunkers program. Is there any truth to this?
A: This claim is false. Beck quoted from a security message on the site for dealers, not the site for the general public.
In 2008, U.S. health care spending is estimated to have been $2.4 trillion. It is projected to nearly double to $4.4 trillion in 2018.
Source: Health Affairs/Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
There were 2.6 million children who lived with both a grandmother and a grandfather in the U.S. in 2008.
Source: Census Bureau
There were 6.6 million children living with a grandparent in the U.S. in 2008. That’s 9 percent of all children in the country.
Source: Census Bureau
In 2007, 2.5 million grandparents were responsible for most of the basic needs of one or more of the grandchildren living with them.
Source: Census Bureau
Perhaps the most emotional of the health care ads we’ve seen in recent months is the one featuring Canadian Shona Holmes, who warns of the dangers of a government-run health care system. Holmes tells viewers: "I survived a brain tumor. But if I’d relied on my government, I’d be dead. … As my brain tumor got worse, my government health care system told me I had to wait six months to see a specialist. In six months,
The first Major League Baseball All-Star Game took place during the World Fair in Chicago on July 6, 1933.
Source: MLB.com