PolitiFact's amazing double standard struck again as it rated President Obama's broken promise "Half True," that Americans would keep their health insurance under his health care law.
There are already stories of Americans being dropped from their health insurance plans, and PolitiFact's Louis Jacobson admitted that "In reality, Americans are not simply able to keep their insurance through thick and thin." He added that "the CBO figures suggest that the law could increase that rate, at least modestly" of "forced plan-switching."
Yet how did Obama's promise stack up to "Half True" and not "False"? According to PolitiFact, ObamaCare "does take pains to allow Americans to keep their health plan if they want to remain on it." So although the law failed to help Americans keep their insurance, it tried so Obama's guarantee wasn't false?
And speaking of "guarantee," Jacobson downplayed that as a "suggestion." Yet what part of "you will keep your health insurance" is a suggestion and not a promise?
PolitiFact's bias has not gone unnoticed. George Mason University's Center for Media and Public Affairs found that PolitiFact called Republicans dishonest three times more than Democrats in the first four months of President Obama's second term.
NewsBusters' Tim Graham wrote back in May:
"Even in the first three weeks in May, while the Obama scandals piled up – from Benghazi to the IRS to the DOJ phone-records scandals -- Republicans are still being flagged as worse than Democrats, with 60 percent of the website's selective claims rated as false so far this month (May 1 – May 22), compared to 29 percent of their Democratic statements – a 2 to 1 margin."
And the same Center for Media and Public Affairs called out PolitiFact's bias during the 2012 campaign. As Graham included in his piece, CMPA reported last September:
"PolitiFact rated Democratic statements as 'mostly true' or 'entirely true' about twice as often as Republican statements – 42% true ratings for Democrats vs. 20% for Republicans.
"Conversely, statements by Republicans were rated as entirely false about twice as often as Democratic statements – 29% false ratings for GOP statements vs. 15% false ratings for Democrats. (This includes categories labeled 'false' and 'pants on fire.')"
