Popular Fact Checking Website's ‘Lie of the Year’ Goes To…

The popular factchecking website PolitiFact announced its "Lie of the Year" on CNN Thursday. The distinction went to President Barack Obama's oft-repeated claim during the health care policy debate that "if you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan."

PolitiFact named President Barack Obama's oft-repeated claim that Americans could keep their existing health insurance policies under Obamacare its "Lie of the Year." (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Angie Drobnic Holan, editor of PolitiFact, said on CNN that her colleagues at PolitiFact made their choice based on Obama's "lie" having "the most impact" on the debate.

Millions of Americans have actually lost their existing health insurance policies after the new health care law, also known as "Obamacare," was implemented.

"Boiling down the complicated health care law to a soundbite proved treacherous, even for its promoter-in-chief," reads a post on PolitiFact. "Obama and his team made matters worse, suggesting they had been misunderstood all along. The stunning political uproar led to this: a rare presidential apology."

In 2009, PolitiFact rated the claim as "half true."

Holan named three runners-up for the title.

• Conservative author Ann Coulter's claim that "no doctors who went to an American medical school will be accepting Obamacare." It received the "pants on fire" rating, the most extreme type of lie by PolitiFact's rating.
• Rep. Michele Bachmann's (R-Minn.) claim that the IRS is going to be "in charge" of "a huge national database" on health care that will include Americans’ "personal, intimate, most close-to-the-vest-secrets." It also received the pants on fire rating.
• Sen. Ted Cruz's (R-Texas) claim that "President Obama just granted all of Congress an exception" to Obamacare. The claim was rated "false" which is one step below pants on fire.

--

Follow Eddie Scarry (@eScarry) on Twitter

[related]