"Obamacare could force thousands of volunteer fire ...



EVALUATING CLAIMS: Avoiding Misleading Logic Fallacies Name: ______________________________Article #1What is the claim?What about the claim is true? (Provide specific details and explanations.)What about the claim is misleading? (Provide specific details and explanations.)Article #2:What is the claim?What about the claim is true? (Provide specific details and explanations.)What about the claim is misleading? (Provide specific details and explanations.)Article #3:What is the claim?What about the claim is true? (Provide specific details and explanations.)What about the claim is misleading? (Provide specific details and explanations.)Directions: Review your answers for all the articles. What patterns do you notice about how information is manipulated?Brainstorm ideas about how you can avoid false or misleading information and write your suggestions in the space below.Directions: View logic fallacy poster and take note of the various flaws in reasoning that can mislead an audience. Then, return to your three Politifact articles. Find two examples of logic fallacies in the articles and create a poster presenting these logic fallacies to the class. Each example must have the following: (1) they type of logic fallacy, (2) the definition of the logic fallacy from the poster, and (3) the quote from the Politifact article (with an introduction to or explanation of the quote if necessary). Please also make sure that the poster is legible and attractive as it will hang in the classroom. Only one poster is required per group. Please make sure everyone’s names are on it.The Truth-O-Meter Says:"60 percent of people on food assistance are working."Barbara Lee?on Wednesday, December 4th, 2013 in an episode of CNN's "Crossfire"Barbara Lee says 60 percent of people on food assistance are workingFollowing President Barack Obama’s?recent speech on the economy, CNN’s?Crossfireroundtable?debated?how to shrink the income gap. Talk centered mostly on the minimum wage.U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., told host Newt Gingrich she supports a raise to $10 an hour so that people can support themselves and their families."First of all, $7.25 an hour. Can anyone live off that?" Lee said. "Secondly, I just have to say, 60 percent of people on food assistance are working. They're part of the working poor."We wanted to take a closer look at what percentage of people receiving food stamps (also known as SNAP,?for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) are working.Lee’s spokeswoman pointed us to a?January 2013 report?on the relationship between SNAP and employment put out by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonprofit liberal think tank.Finding the right dataThe report analyzes food stamp data from two different sources: SNAP Quality Control Household Statistics and the Census Bureau’s Survey of Income and Program Participation.Lee’s 60 percent figure comes from the census survey. That’s data the census obtained by calling households. They assessed the work rate of individuals from households receiving food stamps in a typical month and the year before and after. The survey is longitudinal, so it’s designed to show how the work rate changes over time in these same families.The SNAP?data set, on the other hand, isn’t longitudinal. It’s information collected by the Department of Agriculture, and it’s meant to show a snapshot of what the work rate looks like at a single point in time. The data includes a sample of families from each state, but it’s not the same families included every time. Both data sets highlighted in the report are from 2005, so the author could use an apples-to-apples comparison.If the SNAP data isn’t longitudinal, why not just use the Census survey?to show what’s happened to the work rate over time?Dorothy Rosenbaum, the author of the report, said the SNAP data?is more reliable and more recent.So what’s the right percentage?Lee’s 60 percent doesn’t refer to the entire population of food stamp recipients. Rather, it refers to the subset of recipients who are "expected" to work -- that excludes children, the elderly and the disabled. That distinction makes sense, since including the groups that never work wouldn’t be a reliable way to track the change in the work rate.Let’s compare what the SNAP and Census?data show about the percentage of people on food stamps who work (out of those expected to), but let’s keep in mind that this data is pre-recession:43 percent, SNAP numbers indicate.58 percent, Census numbers indicate.In a report footnote, Rosenbaum averaged the two statistics and said that, as of 2005, half of all food stamp recipients expected to work were working. The average is close to what Lee mentioned, but she selected the higher of the two numbers available.We’ve also got 2011 numbers that weren’t officially released by the Census or SNAP: 42 percent for SNAP and 56 percent for the Census, Rosenbaum said, based on public use data she accessed. So by both accounts, things haven’t changed much since the year Lee took her data from.Although all this data excludes those with disabilities, people with disabilities who don’t receive benefits from programs like Veterans Affairs, Social Security or Supplemental Security Income are still in the category of those expected to work. If all adults with disabilities were moved to the proper category of the data, the work rate percentage would shoot up to a more accurate value.Our rulingLee said 60 percent of people receiving food stamps are working. She should’ve specified that she meant 60 percent of the pool of recipients expected to work. Her figure’s a little high, but anywhere from about 42 to 58?percent is a reasonable summary of the report’s findings and more recent data available. We rate her statement Mostly True.The Truth-O-Meter Says:1905086995The minimum wage "in real terms right now is below where it was when Harry Truman was in office."Barack Obama?on Wednesday, December 4th, 2013 in a speech at the Center for American Progress85725199390Barack Obama says minimum wage is lower now than under Harry TrumanOne of the major messages in President Barack Obama’s Dec. 4, 2013, speech on the economy was that Americans deserve a raise."It's well past the time to raise a minimum wage that in real terms right now is below where it was when Harry Truman was in office," Obama said in an address at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank.We have previously checked an Obama claim that the minimum wage is "lower right now than it was when Ronald Reagan took office." We rated that?Mostly True. But we hadn’t heard the claim about Truman, so we decided to take a look.The?minimum wage, as written into law,?has been $7.25 an hour since 2009. Here’s a table that covers the years of Truman’s tenure in office. We calculated the inflation-adjusted wage using the Bureau of Labor Statistics’?inflation calculator.?YearNominal minimum wageReal minimum wage (2013 dollars)19450.405.1919460.404.7919470.404.1919480.403.8819490.403.9319500.757.2719510.756.7419520.756.6120137.257.25?So in 1950 -- which was during Truman’s time in office -- the inflation-adjusted minimum wage was $7.27, which is higher than today’s minimum wage. Two cents more isn’t a lot, but it’s enough to give some credibility to the president’s claim.We should add, however, that 1950 was the exception. That was the year the minimum wage was raised -- indeed, it was nearly doubled. And with each subsequent year, inflation ate away at the wage’s purchasing power.Ultimately, during seven out of the eight calendar years when Truman was in office, the inflation-adjusted minimum wage was lower than it is today -- not higher.Does that matter? It’s a judgment call."The point wasn’t to isolate the eight years of Truman presidency, but the fact that we’re back at the same level as it was in 1950," said Bobby Whithorne, a White House spokesman.Gary Burtless, an economist with the Brookings Institution, agreed."A lawyer defending the president’s wording would add that the president did not say the current minimum wage is lower than it was in every single year of President Truman’s tenure in office," Burtless said. "Some of President Obama’s listeners would no doubt be stunned to (learn) that the purchasing power of the current minimum wage is below its purchasing power in any year of the Truman administration, even if the difference is only two cents per hour."Our rulingObama said the minimum wage "in real terms right now is below where it was when Harry Truman was in office." That’s correct for 1950, but incorrect for the other seven calendar years of Truman’s tenure. In fact, you could just as easily say that the minimum wage is higher today than it was under Truman, and that would be correct for seven out of the eight years he was in office. The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context, so we rate it Half True.The Truth-O-Meter Says:-171450490220"Republicans have proposed dozens of (health care) solutions designed to help control costs and improve quality."Ron Johnson?on Sunday, November 17th, 2013 in the weekly Republican addressRepublicans have proposed many solutions to control health care costs and improve quality, Ron Johnson saysShare this story:Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., delivers the GOP's weekly national addressAs Republicans continue to score points bashing the early struggles of President Barack Obama’s health care reform law, the common refrain from Democrats is to claim their GOP counterparts lack an alternative. It has fit neatly into their characterization of Republicans as the party of "no."For their part, Republicans have consistently said that’s not the case."Throughout the health care debate, Republicans have proposed dozens of solutions designed to help control costs and improve quality — without surrendering control of your personal health care decisions to nameless bureaucrats in Washington," said Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., during the Republican national address Nov. 17.The question of how Republicans would replace Obamacare has?come up before, and it will remain a major part of the argument over the law’s future throughout the 2014 midterms. There’s a big difference between no solutions, as Democrats surmise, and dozens, as Johnson claims. So who is right? We decided to investigate.How we got hereWe asked Johnson’s office to provide evidence of the "dozens of solutions" Republicans have put forth. His staff?sent us a list of 24 Republican proposals released over the years, starting with President George W. Bush’s call for health reforms in 2007.At this point, let’s pause for some important political and parliamentary realities.In 2009 and 2010 when the health care law worked its way through Congress and onto Obama's desk, Republicans were in the minority in both the Senate and House. During the initial debate, Republicans circulated many ideas and put forth many bills. None of them gained enough support within the GOP to become a clear conservative alternative to Obamacare, and even if they had, it was unlikely Democrats would go along.Republicans had?even less interest in capitulating with Democrats and working with them on the Affordable Care Act. Not a single Republican voted for the final version Obama signed into law.We reviewed the list of legislation Johnson’s office sent us. With a handful of exceptions, the bills are partial or full retreads of each other and share similar ideas. Some actually include provisions of Obamacare, such as allowing young people to stay on their parents’ plans or making it harder for insurance companies to drop?people with pre-existing conditions.Johnson’s camp said the Republican senator doesn’t necessarily support all the proposals, but they show?that Republicans have been active players in the debate.We reviewed Johnson’s list of 24 proposals. We found the ideas in them?tend to fall along the following six lines:Tax incentivesA bevy of proposals provide tax breaks or credits to incentivize the uninsured to purchase coverage on the individual market and make it cheaper for those already with coverage.One put up by the?Republican Study Committee?with more than 100 cosponsors would give a$7,500 deduction to individuals and $20,000 to families. To pay for the deductions, that bill would also eliminate a long-standing tax break on employer-provided insurance. So while some new faces would get insurance on the individual market, the out-of-pocket expenses would likely go up for many Americans, especially those who get good coverage through work.Another bill from?Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., gives a tax credit of $5,000 to families at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level, about $47,000.Both proposals aim to improve the affordability of insurance for low-income individuals, and while it could shift the cost curve down for some people, it would not dramatically transform the cost of care.Allow insurance companies to sell policies across state linesRight now, insurance companies may not sell a policy in multiple states. Republicans want to open up the borders, saying it would increase competition and allow market forces to push down prices. Opponents caution that insurance companies will flock to states with the loosest regulations and sell policies from there.The nonpartisan?Congressional Budget Office predicted?savings of about $12 billion from 2007-15, but most experts did not believe it would dramatically impact the cost of insurance or entice more people to sign up. The CBO predicts it would mean cheaper premiums for healthier individuals and more costly insurance for those who have health issues and are?already paying a lot. That’s the opposite goal of health care reform.Tort reformTort reform would change?statutes regarding medical malpractice lawsuits, which Republicans say lead to frivolous claims and legal costs. It saves money, but it’s nothing to write home about. In 2010, the?CBO?said?modest reforms, such as capping noneconomic damages at $250,000 and punitive damages at $500,000, would save $54 billion in federal spending over the next 10 years. Such a move would also reduce medical liability insurance and eliminate some threat of lawsuits that push doctors to prescribe unnecessary medical tests, decreasing overall health care costs by 0.5 percent.Health savings accountsHealth savings accounts allow individuals to set aside money from each paycheck, before taxes, for future medical care. Republicans hope health savings accounts encourage individuals to be frugal and conscientious spenders on their health care, which would drive down the overall costs. But an expansion would?cost the federal government $4.7 billion?in lost revenue.Creation of high-risk poolsRepublican plans have called for about $25 billion to support states that create high-risk pools for sicker patients who have a hard time getting coverage on the individual markets. We’ve talked to?experts in the past?who have said that’s probably not enough to make it a viable option for the states or the consumers, since the insurance would have to be heavily subsidized to make it cost-effective.Allow trade associations and small business to purchase insurance as a groupSince at least 2000, Republicans have pushed for something called Association Health Plans, which allow some small businesses to pool together and buy insurance as a group. However, this would impact a small portion of the population and just 600,000 of the 47 million uninsured people would gain coverage, according to the CBO. A larger pool would lower rates for small business employees already purchasing coverage and healthy individuals. But it would also mean higher premiums for most other insured individuals "because a disproportionate share of enrollees with lower-than-expected health care costs would leave the regulated market to obtain insurance through an AHP, thereby increasing the average expected health care costs of those remaining in the regulated market," the?CBO said.About qualityWhile some of these proposals could shift the cost curve down, nothing we came across would directly impact quality of care, as Johnson claimed. We ran the list by a panel of experts as well, and many of them agreed."Johnson may be exaggerating a bit numerically, but the more important point is that the Republican plans would do next to nothing to improve quality, extend coverage, or control spending growth," said Henry Aaron, a health policy expert at the Brookings Institute.William Dow, a professor of health care economics and head of the University of California Berkeley Division of Health Policy and Management, largely agreed. "There is little here that would improve quality," he said. "Some could have minor effects on controlling costs."Our rulingJohnson said, "Republicans have proposed dozens of solutions designed to help control costs and improve quality" of health care in the United States.?Republicans have circulated quite a few bills and ideas over the years, but there is almost nothing in most of the GOP proposals that directly addresses quality of care.As far as costs, most of the proposals have winners and losers. Some of the bills would make health care more affordable for certain individuals, and tort reform and the expansion of health savings accounts could bend the cost curve down slightly. Elements of Johnson’s claim are at least partially accurate, but in the aggregate, the plans are far from substantial. We rate his statement Half True.The Truth-O-Meter Says:"What we said was, you can keep (your plan) if it hasn’t changed since the law passed."-219075208280Barack Obama?on Monday, November 4th, 2013 in a speech to Organizing for ActionBarack Obama says that what he'd said was you could keep your plan 'if it hasn’t changed since the law passed' compiled President Barack Obama’s claims that if you liked your health insurance plan, you could keep it.This webpage, which "debunks the myth that reform will force you out of your current insurance plan or force you to change doctors," was still up as of Nov. 5, 2013.President Barack Obama’s attempt at explanation has only fanned the flames of controversy over his campaign line, "If you like your health care, you can keep it."Obama was already dealing with a troubled rollout of the website when reports of health insurance cancellation notices for many Americans started arriving.Such notices have been common only for people purchasing insurance on the individual market, which accounts for about 5 percent of Americans, a small minority. But the existence of people in that situation struck many critics as contradicting his like-it, keep-it promise on its face.Obama’s speech on Nov. 4, 2013, at a meeting of Organizing for Action, his campaign organization, seemed to offer a new, and confusing, wrinkle."Now, if you have or had one of these plans before the Affordable Care Act came into law and you really liked that plan, what we said was you can keep it if it hasn’t changed since the law passed," Obama said.The way we read that comment -- and, judging by the contentious White House press briefing the following day, the way other Washington journalists read it -- was that Obama was saying that people had been misreporting the pledge he had made.It wasn’t that he said "if you like your plan, you can keep it" -- it was "if your plan hasn’t changed since the law passed," you can keep it.We wondered whether there was any evidence that Obama had used this particular caveat in the past.Some background on "grandfathering"First, a brief reminder of why some Americans are getting cancellation notices.Under the new law, policies must cover a comprehensive set of benefits, including emergency care, maternity care, mental health or prescription drugs. If they don’t, they can be "grandfathered" in, but only if the plans have not been changed at all.To be grandfathered, the plans must have operated continuously since before the law’s enactment in 2010 and have made no significant changes. This means the insurer can keep the insurance plan essentially as is, without having to implement many (though not all) of the new law’s requirements.But the regulations defining what constitutes a significant change are tight -- and if it’s breached, the plan is on the road to oblivion. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, known as HIPAA, says that if an insurer wants to end a policy,?it needs to give policy holders 90 days notice, as well as information about alternative coverage plans that insurer is offering.That’s essentially the message that many individual-market policyholders are receiving in the mail.We should note that Obama’s comments often were aimed at the general public. And most people do get to keep their health plans under his law, especially those who get insurance through work or Medicare. His plan specifically left the existing health care system in place while reducing the ranks of the uninsured.Here at PolitiFact, we noticed last year that Obama’s comments were?too sweeping?and that it was unlikely that all Americans would be able to keep their insurance through thick and thin. ??Obama’s comments before the law passedWe decided to look back from all the public statements we could find about people being allowed to keep their plans. We found at least 37 times where Obama made a variation of the pledge that if you like your plan, you can keep it. (See all 37 mentions.)Obama used the phrase 26 times between his inauguration and when the law passed. Here are four representative samples.??Town hall in Green Bay, Wis., June 11, 2009: "No matter how we reform health care, I intend to keep this promise: ?If you like your doctor, you'll be able to keep your doctor; if you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan."??Remarks at the American Medical Association, June 15, 2009: "I know that there are millions of Americans who are content with their health care coverage -- they like their plan and, most importantly, they value their relationship with their doctor. They trust you. And that means that no matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise to the American people: If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what."??Presidential weekly address, July 18, 2009: "Michelle and I don’t want anyone telling us who our family’s doctor should be – and no one should decide that for you either. Under our proposals, if you like your doctor, you keep your doctor. If you like your current insurance, you keep that insurance. Period, end of story."??Remarks in Fairfax, Va., March 19, 2010: "If you like your doctor, you’re going to be able to keep your doctor. If you like your plan, keep your plan. I don’t believe we should give government or the insurance companies more control over health care in America. I think it’s time to give you, the American people, more control over your health."Obama’s comments?after the law was signedWe found 10 instances after the law was signed when Obama made the pledge again.In remarks in?Portland, Maine, on April 1, 2010, Obama said that "if Americans like their doctor, they will keep their doctor. ?And if you like your insurance plan, you will keep it. ?No one will be able to take that away from you. ?It hasn’t happened yet. ?It won’t happen in the future."After the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued regulations for the law on June 14, 2010, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius?blogged: "The bottom line is that under the Affordable Care Act, if you like your doctor and plan, you can keep them."Obama then repeated the remarks during several campaign events in 2012, as well as at thefirst presidential debate in Denver?on Oct. 3, 2012: "If you've got health insurance, it doesn't mean a government takeover. You keep your own insurance. You keep your own doctor. But it does say insurance companies can't jerk you around."Finally, as recently as a few weeks ago, Obama was playing down the impact."Now, let’s start with the fact that even before the Affordable Care Act fully takes effect, about 85 percent of Americans already have health insurance -– either through their job, or through Medicare, or through the individual market," he said in a?speech?in Largo, Md., on Sept. 26. "So if you’re one of these folks, it’s reasonable that you might worry whether health care reform is going to create changes that are a problem for you -- especially when you’re bombarded with all sorts of fear-mongering. So the first thing you need to know is this: If you already have health care, you don’t have to do anything."Overall, we didn’t find one instance in which Obama offered a caveat that it only applies to plans that hadn’t changed after the law’s passage.What the White House saysThe day after Obama claimed that he’d said "you can keep it if it hasn’t changed since the law passed," reporters grilled White House Press Secretary Jay Carney.Carney claimed Obama was referring to the rules that Sebelius issued in June 2010."When the rule was issued, Secretary Sebelius and others spoke to the press about it … if insurance companies changed their plans or canceled their plans, they would give up the opportunity to grandfather those plans in June of 2010. There was a fair amount of coverage of that in major newspapers."The White House pointed us to a June 14, 2010, telephone news conference with Sebelius on the rules."If you have a plan that you like, you keep it, but if indeed insurers or employers decide to make dramatic shifts, to the detriment of employees, huge cost shifts, huge increases in deductibles, slashing benefits, whatever, they then no longer qualify for the grandfather status, because that's really a change in the plan, and that isn't a plan that most people like very much," she said.The White House also offered several?news?articles?published?at the time that reported Sebelius’ comments.Of these, the one that offered the most critical assessment of the grandfather provisions, in the?Washington Post, got most of its ammunition from Republicans, quoting Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., saying on the Senate floor, "This is not only bad news for the vast majority of Americans who like the plans they have. It also flatly contradicts the president's repeated promises."By contrast, what Sebelius told the?Post?focused on the positive rather than the negative aspects of the change. She said Obama "wanted to make sure as much as possible that if people had plans that they liked they got to keep them and balance that with, you know, some overall protection for consumers," the?Post?reported.Finally, the White House provided a series of other comments in which the administration offered a more nuanced formulation of the like-it, keep-it policy, but they were all in the past month, during the time when such criticism was already emerging.Our rulingAccording to Obama, "What we said was you can keep (your plan) if it hasn’t changed since the law passed."But we found at least?37 times?since Obama’s inauguration where he or a top administration official made a variation of the pledge that if you like your plan, you can keep it, and we never found an instance in which he offered the caveat that it only applies to plans that hadn’t changed after the law’s passage. And seven of those 37 cases came after the release of the HHS regulations that defined the "grandfathering" process, when the impact would be clear.While Sebelius’ teleconference with reporters did provide that sort of caveat, in other instances, such as her blog post, she focused on the upside, not the downside. Her one mention of the extent to which grandfathered plans might be doomed strikes us as the equivalent of the fine print on a television commercial running in heavy rotation. Obama is ignoring the overwhelming majority of times he addressed the issue, where most people would have heard it. We rate his claim Pants on Fire.The Truth-O-Meter Says:-209550499745"The (health care) law does not demand that all of these cancellations go out."Nancy Pelosi?on Sunday, November 17th, 2013 in an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press"Nancy Pelosi: Health care law doesn't demand insurance companies cancel policiesU.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., defended the health care law on Sunday's "Meet the Press."President Barack Obama’s apology and administrative pivot to stop a wave of insurance plan cancellations has hardly quieted accusations that he misled millions of Americans when he said "If you like your plan, you can keep it."Facing these criticisms, the Democratic leadership has rallied around the president. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said he actually took more blame for what happened than he might deserve."The law does not demand that all of these cancellations go out," Pelosi said on NBC’s?Meet the Press.We have looked at variations of this claim before, most recently when former Obama adviser Ezekiel Emanuel said,?"The insurance companies are making that choice (to cancel or change policies), not the president."?Our conclusions remain the same. While there’s an element of truth to the statement, it ignores the ways that the Affordable Care Act pushes insurance companies to change the plans they offer.The?Affordable Care Act?sets certain standards for the services pretty much every plan must cover. There are 10 "essential health benefits" and the list includes emergency services, maternity care and mental health care.If policyholders bought plans before Obama signed his reform into law on March 23, 2010, they’re considered "grandfathered." They can keep their plans, so long as those plans don’t change much.We don’t have good information on how many cancellation notices are for plans that could continue if the insurance company wanted. But we do know two things.First, it doesn’t take much for a plan to lose its grandfathered status. A hike in a co-pay of $5 plus the rate of medical inflation could tip a plan over the edge.Second, once a plan is poised to lose its grandfathered status, it’s on the road to oblivion. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, known as HIPAA, says that if an insurer wants to end a policy,?it needs to give policyholders 90 days notice?as well as information about alternative coverage plans that insurer is offering. That’s essentially the message that many individual-market policyholders have been getting in the mail these days.Pelosi’s spokesman, Drew Hammill, told PolitiFact that insurance companies have options."Except for these ‘grandfathered plans’ health insurers in the individual market have to adopt new consumer protections," Hammill said. "In some instances, insurers are doing this by cancelling current plans rather than simply upgrading them. Nothing in the law requires the cancellation of plans as the leader said today."Some health policy experts told us that yes, in a technical sense, insurers are pulling the plug on these old, grandfathered policies. Timothy Jost, a Washington and Lee University law professor, said that "if a grandfathered plan is being terminated, it is the insurer’s decision -- nothing in the law requires it."But other experts said that while this is technically true, it gives a distorted view of what’s going on.The law places grandfathered plans in such a straitjacket -- unable to attract new individual policyholders and unable to adjust terms to market conditions -- that it’s only a matter of time before companies are driven to pull the plug. To ignore the government’s role in establishing the parameters for this highly regulated and highly competitive industry, they say, is substantially misleading."Insurance companies cannot continue to sell individual policies that don’t meet the requirements of the essential benefit package, either to individuals or to small businesses, as of Jan. 1," said Gail Wilensky, the head of Medicare and Medicaid under President George H.W. Bush. "But since the insurance companies are not allowed to continue to sell these plans that the person previously had bought and may have liked, they are effectively being forced to change their plan."By all accounts, even the employers who are offering grandfathered plans to their employees are dwindling over time. The annual study of health insurance by the?Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research & Educational Trust?found that the percentage of workers enrolled in grandfathered plans has decreased from 56 percent in 2011 to 36 percent in 2013.Another study, by the?International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans, found that of the one-quarter of organizations that still have a grandfathered plan, less than half expect to keep their grandfathered status beyond the next two years. In other words, the grandfathered plan is slowly but steadily becoming a dinosaur.Our rulingPelosi said the Affordable Care Act doesn’t require insurance companies to send out the cancellation notices that people have been getting. While there’s some element of truth to this statement, one of the major thrusts of the law is it sets minimum standards. The law intentionally makes it difficult for companies to avoid these minimums and the industry has responded by moving away from sub-par plans. Pelosi’s statement ignores the factors in the law that push companies in a certain direction.We rate the claim Mostly FalseThe Truth-O-Meter Says:-209550277495Says "new mandates are already reducing full-time employment."Americans for Prosperity?on Tuesday, October 29th, 2013 in a television adConservative group says Mary Landrieu backs Obamacare even as it decreases full-time employmentCampaign ad from Americans for Prosperity attacking Mary Landrieu.Heading into the 2014 elections, Republicans have targeted several U.S. Senate seats in their bid to flip partisan control of the chamber. One of these targeted incumbents is three-term Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana.A full year before the election,?one conservative group -- Americans for Prosperity, founded by billionaire libertarian brothers David and Charles Koch -- has already?begun to air?a?30-second spot?critical of?Landrieu.The ad ties Landrieu to President Barack Obama’s health care law. As ominous music plays in the background, a narrator highlights Landrieu’s past support of the law and an on-screen headline flashes on the screen: "New mandates are already reducing full-time employment.""Louisianans told Mary Landrieu to vote ‘no’ on Obamacare. Instead she sided with Barack Obama," the narrator says. "Now we’re paying the price."The mandate in question is a provision in the Affordable Care Act that requires companies that employ 50 or more full-time workers -- those that work 30 hours a week -- to provide health insurance or else face a penalty. This provision of the law has led some to speculate that large companies will cut back on hours, or on employees, to avoid incurring the added costs.But is there evidence that "new mandates are already reducing full-time employment," as the ad says? We took a look.Economy looms largeThe headline used in the ad came from an editorial in the?Wall Street?Journal, which has been critical of Obama’s health care law. The unsigned editorial, published in February,?is largely based on anecdotal evidence from companies, mostly in the fast food sector, that have said they plan to reduce employee hours in the wake of the mandates.However, independent analysis suggests that the recession and the slow recovery are a bigger culprit than Obamacare, at least so far.As we noted when we checked a recent claim by CNBC’s?Maria Bartiromo, a report from theFederal Reserve Bank of San Francisco?puts the current situation into context. The recession drove up the fraction of part-time workers from about 17 percent in 2007 to a peak of 19.7 percent in 2010. It has declined since then.?As of the latest data,?it stands at 19 percent.The study’s bottom line is that recessions drive up the fraction of the workforce who are in part-time jobs when they would rather be working full-time. The 1983 recession pushed the share of part-timers to 20.3 percent. That’s significantly higher than the peak for the most recent recession.What’s different this time though is that the part-time employment rate has remained higher for many more months than in past recessions. The authors put the cause squarely at the feet of the overall economy."The U.S. labor market has recovered only about three-fourths of the jobs lost during the recession and its aftermath, which leaves finding a full-time job still challenging for many workers," they said. "General labor market slack remains the key factor keeping part-time employment high."The report considers whether the Affordable Care Act could be shaping employers' hiring decisions, but concludes that other factors -- including long-standing IRS rules -- suggest the ACA has not made a significant change."Before the law was passed, most large employers already faced IRS rules that prevented them from denying available health benefits to full-time workers. These rules gave employers an incentive to create part-time jobs to avoid rising health benefit costs."Indeed, a?Wall Street Journal?article published by the paper’s news side, ?titled "Don’t Blame Health Law for High Part-Time Unemployment," concurs with this analysis.When we contacted?Americans For Prosperity, the group pointed us to an?article in?Investor’s Business Daily?that catalogs all the companies that are curbing hours to less than 30 a week as a result of Obamacare. But the data is less convincing than it appears.Most of those employers, many of them in the public sector, are cutting back the hours of workers who already aren’t considered full-time -- a development that wouldn’t provide full support for the contention that "new mandates are already reducing full-time employment."Of the 350 employers listed, about 200 said they will be limiting the hours of their part-time work force, and dozens others were cutting hourly workers or positions for student teachers, adjunct professors, or similar jobs that would not have been counted as full-time workers anyway.Our rulingIn its ad, Americans for Prosperity said that new mandates from Obamacare "are already reducing full-time employment."It’s a plausible scenario, but as of now, it’s largely speculative, with the evidence anecdotal rather than statistical.?Across the economy as a whole, part-time employment is high, but independent observers say that has to do with the recession and the weak recovery rather than Obama’s health care law. We rate the Americans For Prosperity claim Mostly False.The Truth-O-Meter Says:"Obamacare could force thousands of volunteer fire stations to cut service or close entirely!"-15240083820Generation Opportunity?on Tuesday, December 10th, 2013 in a Facebook postWill the Affordable Care Act close down volunteer fire departments?-4762564770This graphic was posted to Facebook by Generation Opportunity, a group that opposes the Affordable Care Act, on Dec. 10, 2013Few things tug on the heart strings, or put fear in people’s minds, like the image of a small town losing its volunteer fire station.So you can imagine why a number of readers alerted us to?a Facebook postmaking the rounds that alleged just that.According to a graphic posted by Generation Opportunity, an organization that opposes the Affordable Care Act through outreach to young people, the health care law will have an adverse effect on volunteer emergency services."Obamacare could force thousands of volunteer fire stations to cut service," the post alleges, "or close entirely!"As of Dec. 12, the post had nearly 4,000 shares, 2,500 "Likes," and dozens of comments.We’ve heard plenty of claims about the Affordable Care Act and its effect on employers, but hadn’t looked into how it treats volunteer fire stations. Ask and you shall receive, readers.What’s at issueThere actually is quite a bit of uncertainty regarding the health care law and how it addresses local volunteer emergency services.The employer mandate in the law states that employers with the equivalent of 50 or more full-time employees must provide health insurance to their workers. If not, they face a stiff penalty of $2,000 for every worker after 30.There are 783,300 volunteer firefighters in the United States and nearly 25,500 stations are either entirely or mostly made up of volunteers, according to the National Fire Protection Association.Some of them are small, serve rural areas, and are made up of a handful of volunteers. They’re not likely to be affected by the law.Then there’s the question of hours worked. The law specifies that a full-time employee works at least 30 hours a week. Many volunteers wouldn’t hit that threshold, though it is unclear how hours would be counted. Does it include time spent on call or fundraising for the department?The National Volunteer Fire Council is concerned that the employer mandate will still apply to many stations.Under current law, the Internal Revenue Service considers a volunteer an employee for tax purposes."It does not matter whether firefighters are termed ‘volunteers,’ are considered employees, or are identified by any other name, if the work they do is subject to the will and control of the payer, under the common-law rules, they are employees for federal tax purposes," according to the IRS.That allows any benefits a volunteer firefighter receives to be taxed. And while the U.S. Department of Labor has tight restrictions on the benefits (mostly awarded to cover the costs of travel and equipment for the job) a volunteer can receive, so far the IRS has not said whether it will treat them as employees or volunteers under the Affordable Care Act.In fact, the U.S. Department of the Treasury released?draft regulations?last year for the employer mandate. There was no mention of volunteer fire services."The more we looked at the law we saw there’s nothing in this that says the IRS has to listen to the Department of Labor," said Dave Finger, director of government relations for the National Volunteer Fire Council, an organization representing volunteer fire, EMS, and rescue services. "Around the spring we realized this could be a significant problem for our folks.Finger added that most volunteer fire stations serve sparsely populated areas that don’t have a large tax base. Some even get their revenue from pancake breakfast fundraisers. Finding the resources to suddenly pay for health insurance or the fee would be very difficult.Some stations employ more than 50 volunteers, some volunteers lend their time to stations operated by county or municipal governments with more than 50 employees, and others band together and can surpass the mandate threshold that way. Under any of these scenarios, volunteer departments are worried they could be required to offer health insurance.Lawmakers on both sides of the Capitol, and both sides of the aisle, agree that the law is vague and could potentially affect volunteer units. Rep. Lou Barletta, R-Pa., has introduced a bill in the House that would exempt volunteer forces from the employer mandate, and Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., has asked the Senate to do the same."(The Treasury) put out regulations that didn’t include this," said Elizabeth Falcone, a legislative assistant in Warner’s office. "It wasn’t clear it was going to be dealt with and revised. There’s a history of showing why strong force is important (to get action from IRS)."When there’s ambiguity you need to create certainty," she added. "And that’s the issue. That’s what we’re trying to fix."How big is the problem?But let’s get back to what the graphic said: The Affordable Care Act could "force thousands of volunteer fire stations to cut service or close entirely!"We reached out to Generation Opportunity to get clarity on the severity of the accusation. They didn’t reply to our call.But both Warner’s office and the National Volunteer Fire Council felt that was a big leap."That sounds like the predictable messaging you would hear about these issues," said Kevin Hall, spokesman for Warner. "In Virginia, we have a highly organized and professional volunteer fire team in Virginia Beach, and they sniff at this as being a nonissue. But there is concern in some communities and they’re seeking help in getting more definitive guidance."It’s also worth noting that most volunteers have other full-time jobs, Finger said, and would receive health benefits from their employer or the government.Additionally, many stations don’t come close to reaching the 50-employee threshold, no matter how the IRS chooses to count them. It would also require the IRS to go out and enforce the law and target volunteer fire stations.While "it’s a worst-case scenario that you can’t rule out," Finger said he thought department closures were "unlikely" and thousands of closures were "very unlikely."There’s no doubt that if the employer mandate is applied to volunteer fire departments it would mean additional costs for those that qualify. But it’s more likely departments will decrease their workforce or cut and cap other benefits volunteer forces receive, before slashing services or closing stations, Finger said.For their part, the Treasury Department said it was taking the concerns of volunteer firefighters and other emergency services into account as it works toward the final employer mandate regulations, though they could not say when that would be. President Barack Obama has also delayed the employer mandate for a year, so it won’t go into effect until 2015.And Warner’s office said the cast of support he has recruited for his bill, including two Democrats, two Republicans and an independent, "was noteworthy to people in White House," and they expected action sooner than later.Finger echoed those sentiments."We’re telling our members: ‘One, we think it’s going to be fixed,’" he said. "‘And two, no penalties are coming until 2015, so it’s still a long way off. Don’t do anything drastic now.’"Our rulingThe Facebook post said "Obamacare could force thousands of volunteer fire stations to cut service or close entirely!" "Could" is a dangerous word that allows rabble rousers to generate hysteria without being completely false, but we think it’s somewhat inflated. There certainly is cause for concern, but even those looking to change the status quo see this as an exaggeration. Furthermore, it sounds like those in the know expect the issue to be resolved now that pressure is mounting. The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details.All articles found at: . Tampa Bay Times, 1 Jan. 2014. Web. 1 Jan. 2014.We rate it as Half True. ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download