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Some Republican critics have scoffed at President Barack Obama's pronouncements that the economy seems to be improving, pointing to the unemployment rate, which keeps going up. But Obama has consistently tempered his hopeful words about positive economic indicators with warnings that unemployment rates are ...

In his weekly address, President Barack Obama warned health insurance companies not to derail health care reform, and he praised the progress Congress has already made. Obama said a broad coalition of supporters including "doctors and nurses, workers and businesses, hospitals and even drug companies — folks who r...

President Obama defended plans to cut funding for a program called Medicare Advantage in an interview on This Week with George Stephanopolous. Stephanopolous cited defenders of Medicare Advantage, such as Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida, who say cutting the program isn't fair to people who a...

Sound familiar? The president was accused of being "a socialist, not a Democrat." His plan was described as "undisguised state socialism." One critic, who controlled some powerful media outlets, suggested that communists had infiltrated the president's administration. Those are some of the attacks ...

When President Obama announced on Sept. 17, 2009, that he had decided to scrap the Bush administration's plans for a long-range missile defense shield in Poland in favor of a different missile defense plan, an astute PolitiFact reader called our attention to an interview Obama ...

President Barack Obama went on the Sunday news shows to make the case for health reform. This Week host George Stephanopolous questioned Obama on his support for an individual mandate, which requires everyone who can find affordable coverage to purchase health insurance. Obama defended the matter as a fair...

At the conclusion of a wide-ranging interview on NBC's Meet the Press, President Barack Obama said he was holding out hope that his beloved Chicago White Sox can still make the playoffs. Host David Gregory asked him, "On a lighter note, before I let you go, Mr. President, you were brazen this summer at the All Star...

To show that insurance companies can be callous, President Barack Obama recently cited the case of an Illinois man who Obama said had died because of an insurer's decision. "More and more Americans pay their premiums, only to discover that their insurance company has dropped their coverage when...

In his address on health care to a joint session of Congress on Sept. 9, 2009, President Barack Obama suggested the health care bills in Congress are a bipartisan collaboration. "It’s a plan that incorporates ideas from many of the people in this room tonight — Democrats and Republi...

In his address to a joint session of Congress, President Barack Obama brought up the most explosive charge to emerge in the health care debate: the specter of "death panels." "Some of people’s concerns (about the health care legislation) have grown out of bogus claims spread by those whose only agenda is to kil...

President Barack Obama defended his health care plan in a speech to a joint session of Congress, promoting the benefits of reform for those who already have coverage. One of those benefits, he said, is that insurers will be required to cover checkups and other preventive care. "Insurance companies will be requi...

Seeking to jump-start efforts to pass a health care bill, President Barack Obama defended his reform plan in a speech to a joint session of Congress. He sought to reassure Americans they would not lose their current coverage. "First, if you are among the hundreds of millions of Americans who already have heal...

We don't expect President Obama to remember everything we write about him, but when he repeats a claim we had earlier found to be False, we think it's worth calling him out.On Aug. 20, 2009, President Obama held a discussion and conference call at a national health care forum sponsored by Organizing ...

It's a statistic often quoted by Democrats during the health care debate: 46 million people without health insurance. "Now, health insurance reform is one of those pillars that we need to build up that new foundation," said President Barack Obama at a town hall in New Hampshire. "I don't have to exp...

"I just want to assure [you] we're not talking about cutting Medicare benefits."Those were President Barack Obama's words to a town hall audience in Portsmouth, N.H; they were meant to ease fears that health care reform will slash Medicare benefits and deprive seniors of the treatments and ...

With polls showing seniors are the most skeptical about the health care reform bills working their way through Congress, President Obama's sought to ease some of their concerns during a town hall meeting with a little high-powered name-dropping. The name: AARP. Several times at the ...

At a town hall meeting in Portsmouth, N.H., President Barack Obama was asked about his support of a "universal" health coverage and whether his plan would result in the government taking over health care. In his answer, Obama made a point that caught our attention: "I have not said that I was a single-payer suppor...

At a town hall meeting in New Hampshire on Aug. 11, 2009, President Barack Obama repeated a line he's used many times in describing his health care proposal: "If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan." On one level, Obama is correct. His plan seeks...

During a town hall meeting in Portsmouth, N.H., on Aug. 11, 2009, an audience member asked President Barack Obama why members of Congress have a different health care plan than the rest of us. "Why have you not used the bully pulpit to chastise Congress for having two systems of health care, one for ...

When President Barack Obama gave a speech on the economy in Wakarusa, Ind., on Aug. 5, 2009, one of his statements raised the eyebrows of one alert PolitiFact reader.Obama, touting an element of his stimulus package, said that a tax cut “began showing up in paychecks of 4.8 million Indiana ...

In his recent speech, President Barack Obama said the time is ripe for health care reform because most health care professionals support a new plan. "The default position is inertia," he said during his July 22, 2009, speech on health care when asked why he was so eager to pass health care ref...

In his nationally televised press conference on July 22, 2009, President Barack Obama cited a dramatic statistic to emphasize the need for health care reform. He said, “If we don't act, 14,000 Americans will continue to lose their health insurance every single day.” The White House told us the number came...

President Barack Obama has often argued that health insurance companies need more competition, and he's proposed a public option for health insurance to provide it. "There have been reports just over the last couple of days of insurance companies making record profits, right now," Obama said during ...

To counter Republican criticism that the stimulus package has made little impact on the economy, President Barack Obama has been boasting that the package has provided $43 billion in tax relief. But his claim includes a questionable tax number that inflates the impact.In his July 11, 2009, weekly radi...

Walk back with us through the mists of time to early 2008, and you might remember then-candidate Barack Obama defending the rights of hard-working people so they would not be forced to buy health insurance. Obama's position was different from his two nearest rivals, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards, who...