Health care reform links discussed on RadioWest

Staff reporter Angie Drobnic Holan discussed health care reform on the RadioWest show on March 15, 2010.

Here's a list of links to some of the stories talked about on the show.

• Health care reform, a simple explanation: We explain the basics of the latest health care reform plan.

• GOP health care reform, a simple explanation: We examine Republican proposals and how they differ from the Democratic plans.

• Sen. Lamar Alexander on Medicaid: How Medicaid works, who will be eligible under the new plan, how many doctors take Medicaid.

• Sen. Jon Kyl on opposition to health care reform: We ...

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Posted by Angie Drobnic Holan :: Published on Monday, March 15th, 2010 at 02:59 p.m.

As seen on TV! Get your Obameter cards!

If you like the Obameter, you can play along at home with a deck of our Obameter cards, manufactured by our friends at U.S. Games.

The 500-card deck is great for classroom projects and for PolitiFact charades (imagine the fun acting out Promise No. 313, "Allow bankruptcy judge to modify terms of a home mortgage"!

You can get them direct from U.S. Games by clicking here. They're only $12.95!

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Posted by Bill Adair :: Published on Sunday, January 17th, 2010 at 02:32 p.m.

More changes to the Obameter list

We've made a few more changes to our Obameter data base:

We're deleting these promises:

* No. 190: Improve domestic intelligence gathering between federal and local emergency responder, because it was a near duplicate of No. 490: Seek more information sharing on security between feds and localities, a promise we currently have rated as In the Works.

* No. 367: Improve plans for disasters,because it essentially duplicates No. 321: Improve emergency response plans.

* No. 364: Change FEMA insurance rules to help cities hit by multiple disasters. This promise was based on an incorrect assumption about the FEMA rules in ...

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Posted by Bill Adair :: Published on Friday, January 8th, 2010 at 06:13 p.m.

The difference between Stalled and Promise Broken

We've been publishing lots of updates to our Obamater database of campaign promises and have been getting some questions about our rating system -- particularly how we distinguish between a Stalled and a Promise Broken. So we thought it would be helpful to explain our ratings.

First, we should emphasize that because the Obameter is our creation, we've had to develop the rating system ourselves. They don't teach this stuff in journalism school -- at least not yet! We've tried to make the system thorough and even-handed. We want to show the relative progress of a campaign promise ...

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Posted by Bill Adair :: Published on Monday, January 4th, 2010 at 03:47 p.m.

Two more changes to our database

As we check the status of President Barack Obama's campaign promises, we continue to find a few in our Obameter database that are no longer relevant because they were fulfilled before Obama became president.

That's the case with No. 302, creating loan-forgiveness programs for law students who become public defenders, and for No. 210, on corruption reports from the State Department.

The loan forgiveness program was created by Congress in 2008. It was dubbed the John R. Justice Prosecutors and Defenders Incentive Program and received $10 million to help qualified students who become public defenders or prosecutors pay ...

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Posted by Wes Allison :: Published on Thursday, December 31st, 2009 at 09:34 a.m.

We've deleted No. 183 on reviewing homeland security

During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama promised that his administration "will have the Department of Homeland Security complete a quadrennial review the same way the Pentagon does every four years. The review will be a comprehensive examination of the national homeland defense strategy, interagency cooperation, preparedness of federal response assets, infrastructure, budget plan, and other elements of the homeland defense program and policies of the United States with a view toward determining and expressing the homeland defense strategy of the United States and establishing a homeland defense program for the next 20 years."

It became Promise No. 183 in our ...

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Posted by Louis Jacobson :: Published on Wednesday, December 16th, 2009 at 09:19 p.m.

We've deleted Promise 228 on lead-free toys

When we researched Promise No. 228 -- President Obama's vow to sign the Lead-Free Toys Act -- we discovered that President George W. Bush beat him to the punch.

The act was folded in to the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008. The bill passed the House on July 30, 2008, by a vote of 424-1 and passed the Senate on July 31, 2008, by a vote of 89-3. Bush signed it on Aug. 15, 2008.

The act bans lead above a specified trace amount in any children's product.

Since it was Bush and not Obama who fulfilled this ...

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Posted by Louis Jacobson :: Published on Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 03:54 p.m.

We're deleting Promise No. 9 on trade policy

We're deleting Promise No. 9, which President Obama would "use trade agreements to spread good labor and environmental standards around the world and stand firm against agreements like the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) that fail to live up to those important benchmarks."

In publishing an update on Promise No. 8 , we realized that 8 and 9 were virtually identical. So we are deleting No. 9.

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Posted by Bill Adair :: Published on Friday, November 6th, 2009 at 04:33 p.m.

We're deleting Promise No. 147

When we looked into Promise No. 147, to expand how the Family and Medical Leave Act is applied to members of the military, we were surprised to learn that the promise had been fulfilled ... by President George W. Bush. (We suspect it's because the promise was made early in the presidential campaign, in 2007.) Obama also signed additional changes into law on Oct. 28, 2009, but they were slightly outside the scope of his promise.

Obama's promise was "to expand Family Medical Leave to include reserve families facing mobilization. This will allow workers whose spouse is called to ...

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Posted by Louis Jacobson :: Published on Wednesday, November 4th, 2009 at 03:58 p.m.

We've deleted Promise No. 29 on financial regulation

We've decided to delete a promise on financial regulation.

Given this week's economic news, we decided to check Obama's promise to investigate potential conflicts of interest between credit ratings agencies and financial institutions. The promise was No. 29, "Investigate potential conflict of interest between credit ratings agencies and financial institutions." Obama's campaign literature said that "Barack Obama supports an immediate investigation into the ratings agencies and their relationships to securities' issuers."

Credit rating agencies evaluate the soundness of bonds and other financial products. Before the financial crisis, they rated some products highly that ended up being ...

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Posted by Angie Drobnic Holan :: Published on Tuesday, September 15th, 2009 at 07:16 p.m.

Who is PolitiFact? Who pays for Politifact?

As we've gained new readers since the election, every now and then we get e-mails that ask, "Who's paying for this Web site? Who's putting out this information?"

The short answer is this: PolitiFact is a project of the St. Petersburg Times to help you find the truth in American politics. (See more about our mission on the " About Us " page.) The Times is the biggest newspaper in the Tampa Bay area and it has the largest circulation of any paper in Florida, so the advertisers and subscribers help foot the bills for PolitiFact.

Yeah, yeah, you ...

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Posted by Angie Drobnic Holan :: Published on Tuesday, September 1st, 2009 at 05:23 p.m.

Editor & Publisher names us to its list of "10 That Do It Right"

We're honored to make a new Top 10 list. This one comes from Editor & Publisher , the journal of the newspaper business, which named PolitiFact / the St. Petersburg Times in its list of "10 That Do It Right."

Here's what E&P said:

"While fellow '10' honoree Star Tribune used the Web to open the ballot-counting process for all to see, the St. Petersburg Times showed how technology can super-size the traditional — and still fundamental — job of journalists: holding politicians' feet to the fire. PolitiFact was an innovative use of the Web that used both watchdog reporters and digital ...

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Posted by Bill Adair :: Published on Monday, August 10th, 2009 at 06:07 p.m.

The truth on the health care distortions

Wondering about the latest claim in the war of words in health care? If you don't see it on our home page, check our health page, where we've compiled all our health care items.

You can also use the search box in the upper right corner of every PolitiFact page.

If you still can't find it, e-mail us at truthometer@politifact.com and suggest we look into it.

 

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Posted by Bill Adair :: Published on Friday, August 7th, 2009 at 09:48 a.m.

Reason magazine uses Obameter to analyze Obama

When we started tracking President Barack Obama's campaign promises, we hoped the ratings would provoke some interesting commentary. So we're intrigued by a new analysis from the Reason magazine blog .

Reason looked our ratings of Promises Kept and Promises Broken and judged which promises expanded government power and which reduced government power.

Reason editor Radley Balko wrote: "By my count (and some of this is certainly subjective) of the of the 31 promises the site says Obama has kept thus far, 20 in some way grow or expand the federal government. Just six make the government smaller, more ...

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Posted by Angie Drobnic Holan :: Published on Wednesday, June 24th, 2009 at 08:13 a.m.

We've decided to delete a duplicate promise on the Fair Pay Act

A sharp-eyed reader alerted us that Promise No. 413 is essentially the same promise as No. 411. Both have to do with helping women and minorities sue their employers for pay discrimination.

Promise No. 413 states: "Pass the Fair Pay Act: Obama will also pass the Fair Pay Act to ensure that women receive equal pay for equal work."

In substance, it's similar to No. 411, " Work to overturn Ledbetter vs. Goodyear : Obama will work to overturn the Supreme Court's recent ruling that curtails racial minorities' and women's ability to challenge pay discrimination."

We rated No. 411 ...

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Posted by Angie Drobnic Holan :: Published on Monday, June 22nd, 2009 at 06:49 p.m.