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.
PolitiFact and PolitiFact Georgia last week examined a striking statistic that started circulating on the Internet after a fatal school shooting in Oregon.
We also fact-checked claims about Gov. Nathan Deal’s refusal to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act and about the potential impact to taxpayers of a $10.10 minimum wage. We ended the week by looking into a claim that U.S. Senate candidate Michelle Nunn is dodging questions on Obamacare.
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Everytown for Gun Safety: There have been 74 “school shootings in America since Sandy Hook.”
After an armed Oregon high school freshman recently injured a teacher, killed a student and killed himself, a striking statistic began circulating on the Internet. It said that at least 74 school shootings had occurred since December 2012, when the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., left 28 people dead. The statistic came from Everytown for Gun Safety, a group founded by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and gun-control advocate Shannon Watts.
We looked at the incidents in this eyebrow-raising claim. We concluded the group’s figure is accurate only if you use a broad definition of “school shooting” that includes such incidents as suicides, accidents and spillover from adjacent criminal activity. The figure has some value in quantifying the proximity of guns to school campuses, but the group makes a significant stretch by tying the statistic so closely to the mass shooting at Sandy Hook.
We rated the statement by Everytown for Gun Safety as Mostly False.
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Democratic gubernatorial nominee Jason Carter: “There’s $30 billion in expansion funds that we’ve paid – it’s our money and Nathan Deal wants Washington to keep it.”
One issue in the governor’s race is the refusal by the incumbent, Deal, to expand the Medicaid health insurance program under the Affordable Care Act.
Deal says the price is too steep. Expansion, he says, would cost the state $2.5 billion over the next decade. His Democratic challenger, Carter, talks up a different set of numbers and supports extending Medicaid coverage to about 650,000 low-income Georgians now without health insurance.
“There’s $30 billion in expansion funds that we’ve paid – it’s our money and Nathan Deal wants Washington to keep it,” Carter said recently in an Atlanta Journal-Constitution article.
The Affordable Care Act calls for 100 percent reimbursement of costs for expanding Medicaid to newly eligible enrollees in 2015 and 2016 and reimbursement of no less than 90 percent thereafter. A 2012 study by the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that expansion would bring nearly $34 billion in new federal dollars to Georgia over a decade, according to the study. Georgia’s share of the expansion during that time would be $2.5 billion.
Based on that study, Carter would be right to say Georgia is missing out on $34 billion of federal money by not expanding the insurance program, and that’s a good overall point. But that is not the same amount of money Georgians are projected to pay in federal taxes for the expansion, or $24 billion.
We rated Carter’s statement Half True.
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The Washington Examiner in an op-ed on June 9: U.S. Senate candidate Michelle Nunn “has done cartwheels” to avoid taking a stand on Obamacare.
GOP operatives and political pundits have been working to pin down U.S. Senate candidate Michelle Nunn on the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. Republicans know it is a polarizing issue, and The Washington Examiner and others suggest she’s doing her best to evade the issue.
Nunn won’t speculate how she would have voted in 2010 when the health care law was approved. She says she doesn’t want to repeal it, but she has concerns that premium rates aren’t always affordable and that families are sometimes given less choice concerning their insurance plans. And she says Gov. Nathan Deal should have accepted Medicaid expansion under the ACA.
But Nunn doesn’t bring up health care in her stump speeches, nor does she display any discussions on the subject in a prominent spot on her website despite its wide-ranging implications for the state.
We rated the statement Half True.
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