FACT CHECK: Obama uses iffy math on deficit pledge

Yahoo.com ^ | 9/9/09 | CALVIN WOODWARD and ERICA WERNER,

[LdSentinal]

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama used only-in-Washington accounting Wednesday when he promised to overhaul the nation's health care system without adding "one dime" to the deficit. By conventional arithmetic, Democratic plans would drive up the deficit by billions of dollars.

The president's speech to Congress contained a variety of oversimplifications and omissions in laying out what he wants to do about health insurance.

[LdSentinal]

Even the AP gets it.

[Question Liberal Authority]

[icwhatudo]

Nice, heres mine:

[Question Liberal Authority]

NICE!

[Parley Baer]

Yep, Obama lied. Joe was right.

[Tenacious 1]

Let me see if I can make this clear. Make no mistake. The truth is, this $900 Billion government program will not raise the defict by $.10.

Try $2 trillion. 5% of people to enroll on a government plan won’t raise enough revenue to support half of the new 32 agencies that are proposed to manage this plan. 20% of companies in the nation will immediately drop their insurance plans, starting with the unions and GM.

[Beowulf9]

He isn’t going to add ONE dime is right.

[Uncle Miltie]

Reminder: CBO called 0bummer a liar.

[giotto]

As usual, the more interesting news here is about the media. This is an actual Associated Press article. Even more amazing is that it was the top news headline on Yahoo's home page, under the shorter title, "Health-care plan fact check."

What's going on here?

[keepitreal]

“Iffy math”? Nope. An outright lie.

[DrDavid]

20% of companies in the nation will immediately drop their insurance plans, starting with the unions and GM.

The UAW has their own health care plan and won't opt out like Congress. It was the transfer of the health benefit fund from GM and Chrysler to the UAW that drove the automakers into financial difficulty.

[Blood of Tyrants]

If you parse the words correctly you will realize that billions of dollars is not “one dime”.