Wow. PolitiFact's "Lie of the Year" in 2010 was not only true, but we knew it was true at the tim…
Wow. PolitiFact's "Lie of the Year" in 2010 was not only true, but we knew it was true at the time.
They bemoan that "few in the press challenged their frequent assertion that under Obama, the government was going to take over the health care industry." But that's what happened. They say, "The phrase is simply not true." But it was, and is, true.
Politifcat says the phrase "conjures up" a system of government ownership, and that's why it's "incorrect." But while the phrase might mean that to some people, to me it just means control, and it's dishonest to say that something is "simply not true" based on subjective connotation rather than denotation. The fact is that at some point, government control becomes great enough that there is no practical distinction to whether the government actually owns the thing being controlled, and in my view -- and the view of many -- that is largely what the ACA does.
My favorite part is where they quote a professor saying, "The label 'government takeover' has no basis in reality, but instead reflects a political dynamic where conservatives label any increase in government authority in health care as a 'takeover.'"
I want to know what world they live in where government taking over control of something is not a "government takeover" of that thing. 
In the spring of 2009, a Republican strategist settled on a brilliant and powerful attack line for President Barack Obama's ambitious plan to overhaul America's health insurance system. Frank Luntz, a consultant famous for his phraseology, urged GOP leaders to call it a
"It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt."
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