PEOPLE
WORDS BY JESSICA COMSTOCK
Twitter. It’s full of anything and everything: sports results, movie spoilers, breaking news, and “covfefe.” In just the past 10 years, social media, specifically Twitter, has completely transformed the way that politicians communicate with their constituents and the American people. President Trump alone has tweeted over 17,000 times since he announced his campaign for presidency in 2015. Politicians aren’t always truthful, and with the ease of Twitter, they have the ability to say almost anything they want at the tip of their fingers. We found six tweets from prominent political figures and factchecked their statements so you don’t have to.
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Drake Political Review @drakepoliticalreview
This was tweeted by Elizabeth Warren on September 5th–a day after the CNN climate change town hall. During the town hall, on the topic of fossil fuel industries, Warren stated, “They want to be able to stir up a lot of controversy around your light bulbs, straws and cheeseburgers, when 70% of the pollution that we’re throwing into the air comes from three industries.” According to the Environmental Protection Agency’s greenhouse gas emissions research, these sources (transportation, electricity, and commercial/residential) did make up 69% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 2017. The report also states that agriculture makes up around 9% of emissions and industry makes about 22%. While her tweet is accurate, her statement at the town hall was inaccurate when it comes to her use of the word “industries.” The EPA research studied not only industries, but individual consumers as well, including activities related to transportation and residential homes. Individual consumers can contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, the EPA cites “efficient fluorescent lighting” as an example of reducing emissions in buildings-- yes, light bulbs.
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Drake Political Review @drakepoliticalreview
The Trump administration’s fight against Obamacare has had some effects on insurance costs. The 2017 tax reform plan cut the penalty for not having insurance to $0. Without a penalty, insurance companies believed healthy people would opt out of buying insurance. To counteract this predicted loss of revenue, insurance companies increased their premium costs. Sabrina Corlette, director of the Center on Healthcare Insurance Reforms, told NPR that “Insurance companies, in anticipation that consumers would believe that the individual mandate was no longer going to be enforced… priced for that in 2018.” According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, premium prices increased by 32% in 2018, but most were offset with subsidies. However, Biden’s claim isn’t completely true. Premium prices across the country have been steadily increasing since 1999, according to the 2019 Kaiser Family Foundation Employer Health Benefits Survey. In fact, premium costs increased due to the Affordable Care Act. According to eHealth research, from 20132017, the average premium increase was almost 60%, which is vastly different from 2009-2013 where premium increases were all less than 10% across age groups. Even without Trump, it’s likely that premium costs would have still followed the 20-year-long trend and kept rising.
