FactCheck Gets Smack Checked
Sunday, August 30th, 2009by Fleckman
Well, it must have been a slow day for FactCheck.org. They say August is a slow news month and that was certainly true for FactCheck. So slow that FactCheck decided to get into the Op-Ed business with an opinion piece entitled “26 Lies about HR 3200“.
FactCheck decides to analyze a mass/chain/spam email and traces “the origins of this collection of claims” back to me. What FactCheck forgot to do was trace the origin of the mass/chain/spam email. They cannot and never will be able to trace the email back to me. I never wrote it.
Perhaps FactCheck forgot their own advice about chain emails – “The author is anonymous. Practically all e-mails we see fall into this category, and anytime an author is unnamed, the public should be skeptical. If the story were true, why would the author not put his or her name on it?” The mass/chain/spam email has no named author. FactCheck – go do some actual fact checking – find out the author of the the chain email and quit attributing something I never wrote to me.
I’ve already debunked Politifacts article here and here. Now it’s time to expose FactCheck as well. Before I do that there needs to be some educational groundwork laid. Particularly in reference to “statutory interpretation”. We must look at Textual Canons of Statutory Interpretation. These “Textual Canons are rules of thumb for understanding the words of the text. Some of the canons are still known by their traditional Latin names.”.
In regards to analyzing and fact checking HR 3200, it is important to be aware of the following textual canons:
Plain Meaning
When writing statutes, the legislature intends to use ordinary English words in their ordinary senses. The United States Supreme Court discussed the plain meaning rule in Caminetti v. U.S., 242 U.S. 470 (1917), reasoning “[i]t is elementary that the meaning of a statute must, in the first instance, be sought in the language in which the act is framed, and if that is plain… the sole function of the courts is to enforce it according to its terms.” And if a statute’s language is plain and clear, the Court further warned that “the duty of interpretation does not arise, and the rules which are to aid doubtful meanings need no discussion.”
In no way can any sane person assert that HR 3200’s language is plain and clear.
Expressio unius est exclusio alterius (The express mention of one thing excludes all others)
Items not on the list are assumed not to be covered by the statute. However, sometimes a list in a statute is illustrative, not exclusionary. This is usually indicated by a word such as “includes” or “such as.”
In HR 3200, there are 214 instances of “include”, “includes”, or “included” and 335 instances of “including”. There are 77 instances of “such as” and 2166 instances of “such”. So as we can all see HR 3200 is not exclusionary at all. In fact it is an illustrative bill. As a result, HR 3200 does not exclude items and thus does nothing in the way of specically defining what the government can do. It leaves the door wide open for the government to do as they please.
Noscitur a sociis (A word is known by the company it keeps)
When a word is ambiguous, its meaning may be determined by reference to the rest of the statute.
This textual canon is extremely important. When I tweeted out my list on HR 3200 I read the ENTIRE bill, page by page, line by line. I also researched the other statutes and laws referenced in HR3200 including the Social Security Act, Medicare, the U.S. Tax Code, and the U.S.C.. In other words in order to understand the entire scope of HR3200 and my tweets on it, you must do exactly as I have done – Determine it’s meaning by reference to the rest of the statute.
Now on to FactCheck. I’ve debunked Politifact and a Left wing progressive blogger already in this document here – “Karoli Deceives, Distracts, and Distorts”. I offer this document to debunk FactCheck as well. I don’t need to alter anything for any of these organizations or any of the Left Blogosphere. Truth doesn’t need altering.
Let’s just take one of FactCheck’s blurbs from their op-ed piece and illustrate how completely inept they actually were at fact checking:
Claim: Page 42: The “Health Choices Commissioner” will decide health benefits for you. You will have no choice. None.
False: The new Health Choices Commissioner will oversee a variety of choices to be offered through new insurance exchanges. The bill itself specifies the “minimum services to be covered” in a basic plan, including prescription drugs, mental health services, maternity and well-baby care and certain vaccines and preventive services (pages 27-28). We find nothing in the bill that prevents insurance companies from offering benefits that exceed the minimums. In fact, the legislation allows (page 84) any company that offers an approved basic plan to offer also an “enhanced” plan, a “premium” plan and even a “premium plus” plan that could include vision and dental benefits.
So here’s what I actually said – “The Health Choices Commissioner will choose UR HC Benefits 4 you. U have no choice.” Notice I did not have the word “none” in my original tweet. That was from the mass/chain/spam email. I thought FactCheck and others would understand that by me saying the Health Choices Commissioner will choose your health care benefits for you they would have realized the Government will choose your benefits. Therefore, you will have no choice on your own. I guess that was asking to much critical thinking of Fact Check and others.
Now Fact Check goes on to claim that this is false but then confirms exactly what I said. Additionally they go on to try and distract the reader with a claim that they
“find nothing in the bill that prevents insurance companies from offering benefits that exceed the minimums”.
FactCheck goes on:
“the legislation allows (page 84) any company that offers an approved basic plan to offer also an “enhanced” plan, a “premium” plan and even a “premium plus” plan that could include vision and dental benefits.”
Hey Fact Check, you forgot to inform your readers that while the bill doesn’t prevent insurance companies from offering benefits that exceed the minimums and that insurance companies can offer enhanced, premium, and premium plus plans, they must do so according to the the directives and mandates of the Health Choices Commissioner.
In other words, all those plans mentioned by FactCheck are Government Standardized Mandated Plans or “Qualified Benefit Health Plans” (QBHPs) as they like to call them.
In other words, if a person wants to participate in the Government run Health Insurance Exchange or the Government run Public Option within that Exchange, the person must “choose” one of the Government mandated “Qualified Benefit Health Plans”. By the way, if a person does not conform to what the Government wants them to do then they’re penalized with a 2.5 % tax on adjusted gross income.
In other words, a person has no choice. It’s only what the Government tells them what they can have.
I guess Fact Check forgot about the textual canons of Noscitur a sociis and Expressio unius est exclusio alteris above.
So Brooks Jackson, Jess Henig and Lori Robertson of FactCheck.org, instead of writing an op-ed piece based on a mass/chain/spam email, you might want to actually do your job as you proclaim and fact check.
References | Resources | Related Material
- Politifacts Checks a Chain Email, I Check Politifact
http://blog.flecksoflife.com/2009/07/30/politifacts-checks-a-chain-email-i-check-politifact/
- Check the Person Who Checks Facts
http://blog.flecksoflife.com/2009/08/06/check-the-person-who-checks-facts/
- Textual Canons of Statutory Interpretation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statutory_interpretation#Textual
H.R. 3200 America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009
Source: http://blog.flecksoflife.com/2009/08/29/factcheck-gets-smack-checked/