FactChecking ‘Pernicious’ Obamacare Claims

There’s plenty of fodder for fact-checkers in Sen. Ted Cruz’s looong attack on Obamacare.

Summary

Sen. Ted Cruz’s 21-hour talk-a-thon and President Obama’s joint appearance with former President Clinton will keep us busy for a while, but so far we’ve seen our share of false, misleading and not-quite-right statements:

• Cruz falsely claimed that the spouses of 15,000 UPS employees will be “left without health insurance” and forced into “an exchange with no employer subsidy.” UPS is dropping coverage for spouses only if they can get insurance with their own employer.

• Cruz said the “IRS employees union has asked to be exempted from Obamacare.” Not so. The union wants its workers to be treated like any other worker with employer-provided health insurance. It opposes a GOP bill that it says, contrary to law, would “take coverage away from employees who already receive it through their employers.

• Cruz said the unemployment rate for black teens “is over 10 times higher than it is for college graduates — 38.2 percent.” True, but that’s comparing apples to oranges. The unemployment rate for white teens, aged 16 to 19, is also high, at 20.5 percent. There’s still a racial disparity, but the rate is nearly double, not 10 times higher.

• Cruz cited an outdated quote from Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, to back up his claim that Obamacare is slowing job growth. Zandi told us the slowdown in job growth at small businesses is “no longer the case.”

• Sen. Rand Paul wrongly argued that “everybody is going to pay more” for health insurance under the law. The fact is, some will pay more and some will pay less. Some currently uninsured Americans will pay little or nothing because of the law’s expansion of Medicaid.

• Cruz said Obama promised three-and-a-half years ago — in 2010, when the Affordable Care Act was passed — that premiums “would drop $2,500″ for the average family by the end of his first term. That’s not exactly what the president said or when he said it.

Note: This is a summary only. The full article with analysis, images and citations may be viewed on our website here.