Politifact Is Not So Much Arbiter of Truth But A Bunch Of Liberal Hacks And Apologists

When last we met Politifact they were spinning faster than a gyroscope pretending that Obama didn't say what Obama said in order to label a George Will statement "false".

Now they are back with what they call their Lie of the Year: That government has or will "take over" health care

By selecting "government takeover' as Lie of the Year, PolitiFact is not making a judgment on whether the health care law is good policy.

The phrase is simply not true.

Said Jonathan Oberlander, a professor of health policy at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill: "The label 'government takeover" has no basis in reality, but instead reflects a political dynamic where conservatives label any increase in government authority in health care as a 'takeover.' "

Over at Patterico's place, Karl takes Politifact to the cleaners. A taste.

Let’s start with the straw man that “a ‘government takeover’ conjures a European approach where the government owns the hospitals and the doctors are public employees.” By this measure, there has been no government takeover of healthcare in countries like France or Switzerland. Even in England, most doctors, dentists, optometrists and other providers of local healthcare are self-employed, and contract their services back to the NHS. If PolitiFact wants to invoke the “European approach” to healthcare, it might help if they could accurately describe it.

...The point here is not that PolitiFact’s claim is a lie, or that PolitiFact is biased (although the latter is fairly obvious). Rather, the point is that the question of whether ObamaCare is a government takeover of the healthcare system is one of political opinion, not a simple question of fact.

If you're not already, you should be following Karl on Twitter.

posted by DrewM. at 05:51 PM

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