Lying Liars and the Liars Behind Them

I had forgotten about FactCheck.org, but it's fun with the debates. Here's their latest article on the GOP Debate yesterday (I can't wait to see the Dem one coming soon).

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/nh_debate_the_gop_field.html

I particularly like the Guiliani one - the others are at least distortions of some kind or another. This one is outright made up.

Rudy's Fluctuating Fantasy Number

Giuliani repeated his unsupported claim that health insurance premiums would fall by 30 percent or more if millions more bought them individually:

Giuliani: Only 17 million Americans right now buy their own health insurance. If 50 million Americans were buying their own health insurance – because it would be just as tax-advantageous to do it that way – and we had a health savings account, people – economists believe there'd be a 30 percent to 50 percent reduction in the cost of health insurance, and quality would come up.

That's a change from last October, when Giuliani claimed that the reduction would be "more than 50 percent." When we challenged the figure then, the campaign could produce no studies or statistics to support the mayor's statement. We concluded that "the only backup we could find is Giuliani’s own faith in the virtue of free markets."

This time Giuliani is saying that unnamed "economists" predict a somewhat smaller reduction of "30 to 50 percent," but once again his campaign cannot back up his claim. When we asked for the name of a single economist who had produced such a figure, in a peer-reviewed journal or elsewhere, it furnished us with a quote from a campaign adviser, Scott W. Atlas, M.D. He is a professor of radiology and chief of neuroradiology at Stanford University Medical School, but he is not an economist. And Dr. Atlas did not directly support the claim of a 30 percent to 50 percent reduction, though he did express a belief that insurance rates would fall "drastically":

Atlas: If we greatly expand the number of people who purchase health insurance in the private market, we will be able to drastically bring down costs. As we expand the private market with value conscious consumers – as Mayor Giuliani wants to do – health care will not be immune to the laws of economics. It is a simple fact that with a more open and robust market with more consumers shopping for insurance they want instead of what government mandates impose upon them, and with more suppliers competing to attract that money, prices will come down, choice of insurance products will increase, and quality will go up.

We have no quarrel with anyone voicing personal faith in free markets. But Giuliani is wrong to say that "economists" have produced a precise estimate of savings. He implies scholarly support that – so far as we can tell and his campaign has been able to show – doesn't exist.