Fact Checker -"Obama’s claim that the Massachusetts enrollment experience IS relevant to Obamacare"

[TomCADem]

Mitt Romney, of all people, has been attacking the President for comparing the ACA to the Massachusetts Health Law. However, even WaPo is confirming that the comparison is appropriate. Indeed, I actually think that WaPo's fact checker is being charitable to Republicans by giving one Pinnochio for ignoring MA's Medicaid automatic enrollment, because on the federal level, most pundits ignore the expansion of Medicaid due to the ACA, as well.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2013/11/01/obamas-claim-that-the-massachusetts-enrollment-experience-is-relevant-to-obamacare/

So what is Obama referring to? He is talking about Phase 2, which began in January 2007. That was the phase for subsidized health care, covering people between 100 percent and 300 percent of FPL (between about $21,000 and $62,000 in income), who had to pay at least part of their premium.

The final phase, which began in May 2007, was for unsubsidized coverage. The deadline for enrollment for everyone was the end of the year, after which point the individual mandate would take effect. But because of the slow rollout, many health-insurance plans for the final phase were not even available in the early part of the year, according to news reports at the time.

Jason Lefferts, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Health Connector, the state agency that helps residents find health-care plans, said that at the end of the first month for enrollment in the subsidized plan, 123 people had signed up, though by Feb. 8 the number was 226, according to meeting minutes that day. After the end of the second month, 2,089 had signed up. By the third month, more than 5,000 people had enrolled, he said.

In other words, Obama is citing just Phase 2 enrollment. Jon Gruber, an MIT economist who advised on both plans, said that was the appropriate place to start, with the first phase “irrelevant to the debate” because these are people automatically transferring to a type of Medicaid program. Some might differ, but we were convinced on this point.

[Mass]

1. Glenn Kessler is becoming an embarrassment, making distinctions without differences.

This is hardly the only time.


This one is even worse :http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2013/10/29/has-mitch-mcconnell-blocked-the-senate-over-400-times/?wprss=rss_fact-checker&tid=pp_widget

Has Mitch McConnell ‘blocked the Senate’ over 400 times?

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By this logic, counting cloture motions is a very poor substitute for counting filibusters — and that’s why an anecdotal feeling that the Senate is snarled does not show up in the raw statistics.
In any case, the Grimes campaign made an elemental error in not understanding the difference between “filibusters” and “blocking” action in the Senate. A number of the cloture motions that Reid has filed were intended to speed things up, to suit his parliamentary preferences, rather than in response to something McConnell specifically had done.
...