Reality Check

Polis' Ad On Health Care Gets A Reality Check

DENVER (CBS4) ― Give Congressional candidate Jared Polis credit for having a sense of humor, his new political ad promoting universal health care doesn't cover all the facts, but it does keep you laughing.

Ad Starts: When it comes to health care, people all over Colorado are walking around with poor coverage.

Commentary: The claim is true if you're talking about the 17 percent of Coloradans who have no health insurance coverage, and perhaps just as many who consider themselves under-insured.

Sourcing: 208 Commission | 208 Commission, Colorado baseline coverage and spending | Colorado statistics from United Health group | Health Care Colorado

Ad Continues: Health insurance and pharmaceutical companies are raising co-pays and deductibles while denying claims.

Commentary: It's true, many health insurance companies are raising co-pays and deductibles, and all deny certain claims, but the ad also lumps pharmaceuticals into that category.

Sourcing: Kaiser Family Foundation

Ad Continues: Pharmaceutical companies are raising co-pays and deductibles while denying claims.

Commentary: This part of the claim seems false. Pharmaceuticals have control over what they charge for their drugs, but they don't have direct control over the co-pays and deductibles people pay for their health insurance.

Sourcing: The Polis campaign insists there is an "inextricable" connection between pharmaceuticals and rising co-pays, deductibles, and denied claims. The campaign acknowledged that it came to that conclusion based on its own understanding of the health care industry rather than sourcing through studies or statistics (Source: Dayna Hanson, Polis campaign)

Ad Continues: A lot of people have no coverage at all.

Commentary: Again, that's true for more than 700,000 Coloradans.

Sourcing: 208 Commission | 208 Commission, Colorado baseline coverage and spending

Ad Continues: The health care crisis is no joke, but there is a way to cover everyone, all the time: single payer, universal health care.

Commentary: There is more to the story. There's actually a number of ways to cover everyone. Single payer universal health care is certainly one of them. The model Jared Polis endorses would look something like an expanded Medicare style program.

Sourcing: Jared Polis for Congress Web site | The Case For Single Payer, Universal Health Care For The United States | Universal Health Care Won't Work -- Witness Medicare

Ad Continues: Find out why its best for all of us at polisforcongress.com.

Commentary: Clearly Jared Polis has taken a page out of the Hickenlooper playbook, a spoonful of humor makes the medicine go down, or at least makes the ad a little easier to watch. The blurry pixilation helps too.

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