UPDATE: factcheck.org Needs To Get Its Facts Straight about United States Medicare

Update: On the afternoon of August 28, at my suggestion, factcheck.org corrected the error concerning flu shots in the recent article and confirmed that flu shots have been covered under Medicare without co-pay since 1993. factcheck.org corrected a similar error in a July 9 article and presumably looked back and corrected the error wherever it appeared on its web site. That does not help the problem that factcheck.org is widely quoted but it certainly demonstrates good faith so it does not make my Do Not Read list. However, over the years there has been other misinformation about Medicare. 

 

I have seem Factcheck.org frequently claim that free flu shots under Medicare are a benefit of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) of 2010 as amended. Most recently I saw this statement in an article about a political ad in Arkansas. The left-wing University of Pennsylvania web site needs to do a better job of fact checking.

 

According to this 2007 CMS document , free flue shots for Medicare beneficiaries existed for at least three years before PPACA. Flu shots have been covered under Medicare since 1993 and I believe free flu shots for Medicare beneficiaries long predate 2007 (because there is no recommendation to make them free in the 2000 Clinton Adminstration annual report on Medicare I believe they were already free at that time).

 

I find other¹ similar errors in Factcheck.org's fact checking of Medicare, particularly as to items relative to how Medicare is being affected by PPACA. I can't claim it is all wrong but it is rapidly reaching the status of Do Not Read.

 

¹Other similar errors in last two years include:

• The whole thing about PPACA "extending the solvency of Medicare" by reducing payments to hospitals, etc. without mentioning that -- according to the Medicare actuaries -- the money is not saved for the future of Medicare but is spent on Obamacare-insurance subsidies
• Double counting the number of beneficiaries (or miscalculating the percentage of beneficiaries) saving money from the manufacturer discounts giving to the relatively few people on Medicare who reach the donut hole
• Other similar slightly tilted facts related to preventive test, the Wyden-Ryan reform plan, the dominance of the United States Medicare system by private insurance companies, and so forth