GOP Ads Mislead on Public Option Proposals’ Impact on Rural Hospitals

Filed 1h ago · Via FactCheck.org · The Buffoon Desk

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Merry Go Slower - Distressed

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Rijksmuseum · CC0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Republican ads in Texas and Pennsylvania warn that Democratic Senate and House candidates would close dozens of rural hospitals by supporting a public health insurance option. The ads, backed by millions in spending from Trump's political operation and House GOP leadership, cite a 2019 Navigant report commissioned by an industry coalition opposed to public option policies.

That report assumes a public option would pay hospitals Medicare rates, which are far lower than private insurance. But the Democratic candidates named in the ads, Talarico and Stelson, haven't endorsed that specific design, with Talarico explicitly wanting higher payment rates than the study assumes.

A health policy researcher at Georgetown called the study's premise a 'theoretical proposal' that doesn't match what most advocates actually propose. The group behind the Pennsylvania ad did not answer questions about the discrepancy.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

You can build a scary number out of almost anything if you pick the right starting assumption, the way a fisherman can turn a six-inch trout into a two-footer by not mentioning the ruler. Here the ruler is a 2019 study nobody running for office actually proposed to use. Ads that won't say what plan they're attacking are usually attacking a plan that doesn't exist.

Source: Read the original at FactCheck.org → Scored: Merry Go Slower - Distressed · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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