awarded Obama with the “Lie of the Year.” The law was designed from the ground up prevent Americans from choosing to keep health care plans they liked. The president’s statements were simply made because he had to to sell the law to an unsuspecting public. It was obviously and predictably false when uttered.
A statement by President Barack Obama has been given the dubious honor of “Lie of the Year” with a rating of “Pants on Fire” by the Tampa Bay Times’ Politifact.
“If you like your health care plan, you can keep it,” the president said, over and over again, while trying to sell Americans on the Affordable Care Act before it was enacted. It was a comforting promise to those concerned that the government would force unwanted changes on their health insurance plans.
“But the promise was impossible to keep,” Politifact said in its announcement.
Cancellation letters sent to four million Americans notifying them that under Obamacare they could not in fact, keep their health insurance prompted the president to issue a rare apology.
In 2012, the Pulitzer-Prize winning Politifact gave Lie of the Year to a Mitt Romney campaign claim that Obama was responsible for Chrysler moving a Jeep manufacturing operation to China. In 2011, Democrats’ claim that Republicans in Congress voted to end Medicare was given the title.
A reader’s poll signaled broad agreement on the Lie of the Year, Obama’s quote receiving 59% compared to 8%, in second place, for Senator Ted Cruz false statement that Congress was exempt from the Affordable Care Act.
Critics have pointed out that when Politifact looked at the same quote in June, the site gave the comment a rating of “Half True,” a far cry from the “Pants on Fire” rating it received in Thursday’s announcement.
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Denver Nicks is a U.S. journalist and photographer and a staff writer for Time.