Carter Wrenn posted on September 03, 2012 12:30
There’s not much doubt there’s a lot of half-truthin’ and even some outright lyin’ going on in the Presidential campaign but the ‘Fact-Checkers’ who’ve proclaimed themselves the ‘truth-tellers’ in this election are starting to look a little blowsy themselves.
Last Wednesday night Paul Ryan said Obama “funneled $716 billion out of Medicare.”
‘Not so,’ the McClatchy newspaper’s Fact-Checker flatly declared the next morning.
In fact, McClatchy’s Fact-Checker continued, Obama didn’t gut Medicare at all. He simply instituted changes in Medicare that will lower health care costs and save $716 billion – changes that will affect health insurance companies and hospitals but not people on Medicare.
Huh?
Obama spends $716 billion less on Medicare but it doesn’t affect people on Medicare? How can that be? At a glance it looks like Obama called a ‘cut’ a ‘savings’ and McClatchy’s Fact-Checker swallowed it hook, line and sinker.
Maybe there is a difference between a savings and a cut, but, if there is, McClatchy’s Fact-Checker ought to spell it out because, right now, it sure sounds like he’s spinning Obama’s line.