Reaction to the Supreme Court's ruling in favor of the administration in the latest challenge to the Affordable Care Act was swift - and included comments that strayed from the facts.
President Barack Obama's praise of the law and Republicans' criticism of it went too far in several instances:
Obama said that the ACA made health care "a right for all," but as Sen. Bernie Sanders said, the law doesn't achieve universal coverage.
Several Republican presidential candidates claimed the ACA was driving up health care costs, when those costs have been rising at low rates in recent years.
The president said families with insurance through work are paying an average of $1,800 less than they would have been "if we hadn't done anything." But his own economic advisers say the difference in premium growth is only partly attributable to the ACA.
A day before the ruling, Sen. Ted Cruz said that premiums have gone "through the roof," citing a $3,000 increase in family employer plans since the health care law was enacted. The figure is correct, but a 2014 Kaiser Family Foundation report notes that "the average family premium has grown less quickly over the past five years than it did between 2004 and 2009 or between 1999 and 2004."
Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry claimed that "nearly 5 million people lost their health plans." That's based on a high-end estimate by the Associated Press of those whose specific individual market plans were cancelled. The analysis appeared to be inflated. Another analysis put the total at roughly 2.6 million due to noncompliance with the ACA.
Former Govs. Jeb Bush and Mike Huckabee criticized the cost of the law, but failed to mention that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says it will actually reduce the deficits on net over the next 10 years.
Obama said the tax credits in the ACA "have given about 8 in 10 people who buy insurance on the new marketplaces the choice of a health care plan that costs less than $100 a month." They have "the choice" of such a plan, but we don't know how many are paying that amount.
Sanders misses bottom line
Sen. Bernie Sanders has repeatedly claimed that 1 in 5 seniors "live on an average income of $7,600 a year." The reality is not quite so shocking. After FactCheck inquired, the expert who generated that income estimate revised it upward to $8,263, using more up-to-date figures and adjusting for a minor mistake. The income figure does not count such non-cash government benefits as food stamps, housing assistance, Medicare or Medicaid, or proceeds from reverse mortgages. Nor does it include personal funds such as savings or insurance proceeds. Sanders would have been correct to say that 20 percent of seniors in America lived on cash income of less than $13,292 in 2012 - not counting non-cash government assistance.
Kentuckians don't shoot so straight
Kentucky Senators. Rand Paul misrepresented cases involving the Environmental Protection Agency and the Clean Water Act. Paul said a Mississippi man served "10 years" for "conspiracy to put dirt on his own land." Robert Lucas was in fact convicted of 40 counts related to filling in protected wetlands on a 2,620-acre lot and selling housing units with deficient septic systems. He appealed the verdict -but continued to sell and lease homes at the development in question, and even continued filling in wetlands there. The EPA has called this case - which spanned three administrations - "the most significant criminal wetlands case in the history of the Clean Water Act." Lucas served about seven years.
Chip Tuthill lives in Mancos. Website used: www.factcheck.org.
