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Obama Mangles the Facts in Press Conference

By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS Staff Writer Experts say the President “mangled some facts” during his press conference on health care, particularly when it came to explaining to the American public how he intends to pay for it. The non-partisan FactCheck.org analyzed the president’s comments during the press conference and found the following errors: • Obama promised once again that a health care overhaul “will be paid for.” But experts such as the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) say the bills they've seen so far would add hundreds of billions of dollars to the deficit over the next decade. • He said the plan "that I put forward" would cover at least 97 percent of all Americans. Actually, only the House plan will provide this much coverage. Neither the Senate plan nor the plan he campaigned on would cover this many people. • He said the "average American family is paying thousands" as part of their premiums to cover uncompensated care for the uninsured, implying that expanded coverage will slash insurance costs. But the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation puts the cost per family figure at $200. • Obama claimed his budget "reduced federal spending over the next 10 years by $2.2 trillion" compared with where it was headed before. This is not true. Even figures from his own experts don't support this statement.  The CBO projects a $2.7 trillion increase, not a $2.2 trillion cut. • The president said that the United States spends $6,000 more on average than other countries on health care. Actually, U.S. per capita spending is about $2,500 more than the next highest-spending country. A CBO official said Obama's figure represents costs per family, not per person. Obama didn't specify this. To use a per-family figure without identifying it as such is misleading, since millions of Americans live alone, and per-capita spending is the standard used for making such comparisons. For a complete analysis, visit www.factcheck.org

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