The following newsletter is from the Washington Post September 22, 2017:
Politics and Hollywood can create a head-scratching moment when they merge (see: Sean Spicer cameo at the Emmys mocking his inauguration crowd size Four-Pinocchio claim). This week, late-night host Jimmy Kimmel attacked Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) over a new plan to replace the Affordable Care Act, or “Obamacare.”
Kimmel claimed the bill “will kick about 30 million Americans off insurance.” (That’s a high-end estimate.) Firing back, Cassidy said “more people will have coverage. … There are more people who will be covered through this bill than under the status quo.”
But that’s quite misleading. Under the Cassidy bill, federal health-care funding will be reduced significantly in many states. Cassidy says innovation would flourish as states make their own choices, and that will help bring down costs and expand coverage. That’s possible — but unlikely, given just how much funding the bill slashes.
No credible analyst has been willing to venture an estimate on coverage because no one knows how states would react. Still, the expert consensus is that Cassidy’s funding formula makes his claim all but impossible to achieve. Cassidy earned Three Pinocchios.