Friday, December 17, 2010

Politifact’s 2010 Lie of the Year



Yes, Time Magazine has their “Person of the Year” (used to be Man of the Year), some guy named Mr. Blackwell has his Ten Worst Dressed list every year and now, come to find out, Politifact has its own claim to fame: “Lie of the Year.”

This year’s lie of the year, naturally, goes to Republicans who ginned up a perfectly huge whopper of a lie that was sold to voters in such a big way that exit poll after exit poll revealed that November general election voters were there to cast their “No” vote on the government takeover of healthcare..

PolitiFact editors and reporters have chosen ‘government takeover of health care’ as the 2010 Lie of the Year. Uttered by dozens of politicians and pundits, it played an important role in shaping public opinion about the health care plan and was a significant factor in the Democrats' shellacking in the November elections.
Ironically, it was my sincerest wish that the healthcare reform bill that was considered this past year actually be the government takeover of healthcare that was promised, complete with “the public option”. That it wasn’t, and that it will make health insurance companies even richer because they can now insure another 30 million Americans because of this reform bill is truly galling.

But now icing on the cake is that when opponents billed it as a federal takeover, they did such a thorough job of spreading this lie that it is going to be very difficult for the healthcare insurance industry to debunk it.

Something that they are now going to have to do or risk losing billions in profits.


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