By a whopping 86 percent (!) you selected President Barack Obama as your 2013 Liar of the Year.
Reader Pick: Barack Obama
“If you like your health insurance, you can keep it.”
President Obama’s claim that Americans could keep their healthcare plans and doctors if they liked them proved to be his undoing this year, earning him the ‘honor’ of winning Politifact’s Lie of the Year contest and the Red Alert Politics Liar of the Year award. Congratulations, Mr. President!
Runner Up: Ed Schultz
“Thanks to a lot of Republican policies, the city [Detroit] is now filing for bankruptcy.”
MSNBC personality Ed Schultz came in a not-even-close second place. Still, his eye-popping statement about the cause of Detroit’s downfall deserves to be recognized as disgraceful.
Staff Picks
Debbie Wasserman Schultz
“It was not a lie, let’s just be very clear.”
Francesca Chambers: As if lying about the disastrous effects Obamacare would have on millions of Americans’ plans wasn’t enough, Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schutlz continued to defend the falsity. Just a few days later President Obama would apologize to the nation for misleading them about Obamacare. It was a lie, let’s be very clear.
Barack Obama
“If you like your plan, you can keep it.”
Chris Deaton: The president’s words carry uniquely heavy weight. These were supposed to reassure Americans who were already insured that there was no need to panic under his law. It ended up that his promise was a total falsity — and as NBC News pointed out in October, the administration knew for at least three years that it would turn out that way. It was an egregious misjudgment at best, a shameless political ploy to save him from losing electoral votes at worst — and either way, a lie for the ages.
Melissa Quinn: Upwards of 10 million Americans received cancellation notices from their health insurance companies, in addition to seeing their premiums and deductibles increase. This law is Obama’s namesake, and for him to make sure a promise — in the interest of drumming up support for the law — and then turn his back on it, speaks volumes to his character and leadership skills.
Kathleen Sebelius
“The website never crashed.”
Katie LaPotin: Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius spent much of the fall trying to convince the American people that there wasn’t a problem with the implementation of the Affordable Care Act when it was blatantly clear that the website was a complete failure. It’s a perfect example of why Americans have so little faith in their elected officials these days.
Kelsey Osterman: There’s proof that Kathleen Sebelius knew HealthCare.gov was fatally flawed well before its launch — but she still kept telling the American people that the website would work. And when it didn’t, she tried to claim she never knew how bad the problems were. All around, a disgracefully deceitful year for her.
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