Is the 'Lie of the Year' About Ending Medicare Actually True? (L.A. Times)

In what’s become an annual tradition, the lie of the year, as determined by the fact-checking website PolitiFact, involves our health care system. Republicans have received the honor for the past two years (Sarah Palin, in 2009, for saying PPACA would implement “death panels” that decided whether people were too old or sick to receive care; Frank Luntz and his advisees in 2010 for their claim that Obamacare was a “government takeover of health care”). This year, Democrats won the prize, for their charge last week that Paul Ryan’s Medicare bill, passed by the House in April, would “end Medicare.” Left-leaning supporters across the blogosphere been up in arms since Tuesday’s PolitiFact announcement, but it’s been well-defended by the site’s editors who maintain that Democrats have a long history of trying to scare seniors by telling them their entitlement benefits are threatened.