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WaPo 'fact checker': Hey, sorry we helped Obama sell his '6 million have signed up' crapola

By Dan Calabrese ——--January 22, 2014

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One of the worst things that has happened to journalism is the emergence of these dopey "fact checker" features - and in some cases, entire web sites - purportedly written by people who authoritatively cut through the B.S. you hear in the coverage of politics and government and give you the straight scoop about what the truth really is. In fact, they are little more than opinion writers who have assigned themselves official-sounding titles that they hide behind to disguise their bias.
These people put themselves forward as so authoritative that I think they have themselves confused with members of the judiciary. One of these sites is so full of itself that it labels its opinions as "our ruling," as if it is the definitive arbiter of truth. (This same site once issued a "ruling" that Obama's "if you like your plan, you can keep your plan" lie was the truth, only to later call it the Lie of the Year. So be sure to respect their authoritah.) But these sites are a problem because, even though they are not the authoritative arbiters they put themselves off as, a lot of people are fooled by the labels - including far too many conservatives - and you will see people linking to them on social media and Internet forums as if these people agreeing with you settles the issue. And that brings us to the Washington Post's "Fact Checker" column, which is written by Glenn Kessler. Typical of mainstream journalists, Kessler recently took the White House at its word when it claimed that 3.9 million people are now being covered under Medicaid as a result of ObamaCare, and that this - combined with 2.1 million people who have "selected a plan" (but not necessarily paid a premium and as such gained coverage) - was supposed to mean that 6 million people now have health insurance as a result of ObamaCare.
But Kessler soon discovered that he had been snookered by the White House, and to his credit, he owned up to it in a new column published today:
The 6 million figure comes from combining a figure of 2.1 million for people selecting a plan via state and federal exchanges, through December, and 3.9 million for Medicaid, through November. Thus the claim that “6 million Americans have already signed up for coverage thanks to health reform.” There is much less to the Medicaid figure than meets the eye. (The exchange figure has been updated recently, to 2.2 million, but not the Medicaid figure.) Indeed, there has been vast confusion about what this figure means, especially in the news media. The Fact Checker cited the 3.9 million figure in a few recent columns, but prodded by a colleague as well as an interesting analysis by Sean Trende at Real Clear Politics, we decided to take a closer look. Bottom line: This number tells you almost nothing about how the Affordable Care Act is affecting Medicaid enrollment. Reporters need to stop using it.
Further down in the piece, Kessler explains in more detail why the number can't be trusted:
But what these figures do not tell you is how many additional people have joined Medicaid because of the Affordable Care Act. No one really knows, though some have tried to tease out figures from the data that has been presented. CMS says that information about the number of people added because of the Medicaid expansion will not be available until after the end of March, when states start sending their quarterly bills to the federal government for their 100 percent refund of people in the expansion pool. Determining how many people came out of the “woodwork”—the previously eligible who suddenly focused on health care options and thus joined Medicaid—will take even more analysis. There may be so much confusion about the 3.9 million figure because the October and November reports were the first time CMS had ever released monthly numbers. In other words, there is no apples-to-apples comparison over the same period in the previous year. But over the course of the next year the figure is just going to get bigger and bigger, and then it will be clear it is describing the entire Medicaid universe
. Now in fairness to Kessler, this is a complicated matter and it's easy to get confused. But no one who claims to be a "fact checker" should have simply bought the administration's spin hook, line and sinker. Sean Trende, who is cited by Kessler as one of the sources that caused him to go back and re-consider his original endorsement of the White House number, is a very serious commentator who digs down into data and tries to get to the truth of what it really means. He doesn't label himself a "fact checker" and he doesn't label what he tells you as "rulings." But he does what people do use such haughty language ought to do. The bottom line is two things: 1. The Obama claim that 6 million people have obtained health coverage through ObamaCare is completely unsupportable. 2. Media "fact checkers" are nothing of the sort, and should not be treated as though they are.

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Dan Calabrese——

Dan Calabrese’s column is distributed by HermanCain.com, which can be found at HermanCain

Follow all of Dan’s work, including his series of Christian spiritual warfare novels, by liking his page on Facebook.

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