How does PolitiFact Georgia’s Truth-O-Meter work?
Our goal is to help you find the truth in American politics. Reporters from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution fact-check statements by local, state and national political leaders, including lobbyists and interest groups. We then rate them on the AJC Truth-O-Meter.
To fact-check a claim, reporters first contact the speaker to verify the statement. Next, the research begins. Reporters consult a variety of sources, including industry and academic experts. This research can take hours or a few days or even longer, depending on the claim. Reporters then compile the research into story form and include a recommended Truth-O-Meter ruling.
The fact check then moves on to a panel of veteran editors who debate the statement and the reporter’s recommended Truth-O-Meter ruling. The panel votes on a final ruling; majority prevails.
During spring break and Masters Week, the truth squad at PolitiFact Georgia decided to look at claims on the national front about health care, voter apathy and wages.
We truth-tested statements that the Affordable Health Care Act is a major reason there are 50,000 fewer preventable hospital patient deaths and that national voter turnout was very low in November, especially among young and low-income voters. We also fact-checked a claim that, in the United States, there have been “12 years in a row of wages declining.”
We did scrutinize one local claim stemming from the fight to create two new cities in DeKalb County. We looked at whether, when the state House created a special subcommittee to draw boundary lines for the proposed cities, did that mean the state’s taxpayers were on the hook for a local issue? Abbreviated versions of our fact checks can be found below. Full versions can be found at www.politifact.com/georgia/.
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Abbreviated versions of our fact checks are below.
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Mary Margaret Oliver on March 31 in a state House floor debate: Lawmakers were paid for their off-season efforts to, for the first time, take the lead in drawing borders for two would-be cities.
Boundary disputes between the proposed cities of Lakeside and Tucker killed cityhood efforts last year. A House subcommittee brokered a compromise in December between Tucker and what was renamed LaVista Hills after the two sides failed again to agree on borders.
The subcommittee’s chairman, Rep. Buzz Brockway, R-Lawrenceville, said at the time that the boundaries were “set in stone.”
But that became a point of contention on the 39th day of the 40-day session when there was a push for an alternative map.
Speaking in the parlance of a floor debate, Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver, D-Decatur, repeated commitments from the subcommittee.
“Isn’t it true that we were paid a per diem in December to resolve this dispute, to set this border in stone?” Oliver asked.
State records show members of the subcommittee met twice, on Dec. 3 and Dec. 19, to draw up the proposed city borders. Each time the subcommittee members were paid $173 per diem, an unprecedented move by the state House, which also agreed to abide by the subcommittee’s decision, as long as both cityhood groups did, too.
The two chambers eventually struck a deal to split some disputed territory between the two proposed cities.
But we rated Oliver’s statement True.
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Bernie Sanders on March 31 during a town hall in Austin, Texas: “In this last election in November … 63 percent of the American people chose not to vote … 80 percent of young people, (and) 75 percent of low-income workers chose not to vote.”
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont who caucuses with Democrats and is considering running for president, has introduced a bill to make Election Day a national holiday so more people can vote.
He recently decried the lack of Americans participating in the electoral process during an appearance at an International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers-sponsored town hall.
“I beg of you, do not enter that world of despair. We can win this fight. In order to win this struggle we are going to need nothing less than a political revolution, and let me tell you what I mean by ‘a political revolution.’ When, as was the case in this last election in November, when 63 percent of the American people chose not to vote, when 80 percent of young people, when 75 percent of low-income workers, chose not to vote, what we need to do is create a momentum so that 70, 80, 90 percent of the people vote. And when that happens, we win hands down.”
But was Sanders right about the low level of voter participation?
We found Sanders was too loose with some of his numbers and his wording. But he had a point that rates of nonvoting among Americans, and especially among younger and poorer Americans, are high.
We rated his claim Half True.
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Barack Obama on March 25 in a speech: The Affordable Care Act is “a major reason why we’ve seen 50,000 fewer preventable patient deaths in hospitals.”
In a recent speech marking the fifth anniversary of the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama touted a number of accomplishments he credited to the law.
“It’s helped reduce hospital readmission rates dramatically,” he said. “It’s a major reason why we’ve seen 50,000 fewer preventable patient deaths in hospitals.”
We hadn’t heard the claim about preventable deaths, so we took a closer look.
When we asked the White House for its evidence, it pointed us to a report from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. The agency is a part of the federal Department of Health and Human Services.
The report found that “approximately 50,000 fewer patients died in the hospital as a result of the reduction in HACs (hospital-acquired conditions), and approximately $12 billion in health care costs were saved from 2010 to 2013.” This occurred “during a period of concerted attention by hospitals throughout the country to reduce adverse events,” the report said.
Independent experts said the report is credible, even if the numbers are estimates rather than hard figures. They added that it’s reasonable to credit the health care law’s Partnership for Patients program with accelerating the gains, even if the improvements were already underway at the time the law was passed.
The statement is accurate but needs clarification, so we rate it Mostly True.
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Martin O’Malley on March 29 during an interview on ABC’s “This Week”: In the United States, we’ve had “12 years in a row of wages declining.”
Martin O’Malley, a former two-term governor of Maryland and possible challenger to Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, recently sat for an interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week.”
During the interview, O’Malley decried the long-term economic fraying of the American dream, saying the United States has had “12 years in a row of wages declining.” A reader suggested we check out this claim, so we did.
Wages were indeed lower in 2014 than they were 12 years earlier.
But over the 12-year period in question, weekly earnings remained in a fairly narrow band — sometimes rising, sometimes falling. They only deviated by $4 a week over 12 years, a decline of just over 1 percent from where they started in 2002. That’s more accurately described as a sideways trend line than as a steady decline.
We rated the claim Half True.
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