Pat Boone lies in Obamacare attack ad

Pat Boone is the aging pop and gospel singer who serves as a spokesperson for the Right wing organization 60 Plus Association.  60 Plus is running an ad in Ohio and elsewhere attacking Obamacare in which Boone appears.  Non-partisan FactCheck.org took a look at the ad.  FactCheck’s verdict:  The Boone ad is filled with lies.  Here are two.

Lie #1: The ad claims that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act “creates a board of 15 unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats,” called the Independent Payment Advisory Board, which, Boone says, “can ration care and deny certain Medicare treatments so Washington can fund more wasteful spending.” But the board isn’t made up of “bureaucrats,” and it can’t “ration care.”

Truth: The law also explicitly says that the IPAB’s proposals “shall not include any recommendation to ration health care, raise revenues or Medicare beneficiary premiums … increase Medicare beneficiary costsharing (including deductibles, coinsurance, and copayments), or otherwise restrict benefits or modify eligibility criteria.” (See page 490.)

Lie #2:  Boone says that “Medicare will be bankrupt in nine years

Truth: The truth is that Medicare Part A — the hospital insurance trust fund, one of four parts of Medicare — is expected to be insolvent by 2020, according to projections from the Congressional Budget Office, or perhaps 2024, according to the Social Security and Medicare Boards of Trustees. But that doesn’t mean the program will be calling it quits at the end of this decade. Shortfalls have been projected for Part A “almost from its inception,” says a Congressional Research Service report. Way back in 1970, the board of trustees said the trust fund would be in financial trouble a mere two years later. The warnings have continued, but Congress constantly finds ways to extend the program.

Boone either knows little, if anything, about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act or he doesn’t care that the words he says in the ad are lies and distortions of the truth.  Pat, go back to singing.  You were never very good at that but at least you weren’t misleading people.

Read FactCheck’s full analysis of the Boone ad here: http://factcheck.org/2011/11/pat-boone-misleads-seniors/