The $6,400 myth: President Barack Obama voices it at every campaign stop, AARP works it into TV commercials aimed at seniors, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sibelius echoes it Tuesday at the Democratic National Convention and what’s worse, media --- with fact-checkers looking the other way --- continue to print/air that figure, notes Grumpy Editor.
As Sibelius tells cheering crowds at the DNC in Charlotte, “Instead of the Medicare guarantee, Republicans would give seniors a voucher that limits what is covered, costing seniors as much as $6,400 more a year.”
The misleading reference is to the Republican presidential ticket’s Mitt Romney-Paul Ryan health care reform plan that Democrats say will “end Medicare as we know it.”
As The Wall Street Journal explains it: “The claim is based on a now out-of-date Congressional Budget Office estimate of the gap between the cost of health care a decade from now, in 2022, and the size of the House budget’s premium-support subsidy for a typical 65-year-old in 2022.”
In other words, the WSJ adds, “the $6,400 has no relevance for any senior today. None.”
Vouchers are not included in the Romney-Ryan plan.
Yet, media, trumpeting increased fact-checking as Election Day nears, continue to run with claims of $6,400 in annual higher health costs and vouchers with coverage limits.
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