Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post, will from time to time fact check claims made by politicians for the truthfulness. In his fact checking, he uses a rating scale for untruthfulness or exaggeration which ranges from one to four Pinocchios, with one Pinocchio representing "some shading of the facts" to four Pinocchios representing "whoppers."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Most of the time the statements that are fact checked are given at least one Pinnochio. However, every once and a while, a statement is given The Geppetto Checkmark which means:
Statements and claims that contain “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” will be recognized with our prized Geppetto checkmark."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
In today's paper, Kessler gave the rare Geppetto checkmark to a statement made by President Obama on March 25, 2015 about the Affordable Care Act, an Act which has been vilified by the Republicans (Just how many times have they tried to repeal it--I've lost count).
The President's Statement was as follows:
It’s a major reason why we’ve seen 50,000 fewer preventable patient deaths in hospitals.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/...
Kessler then goes on to fact check this statement, noting
This number jumped out at us during the president’s recent speech hailing his health-care law. Could 50,000 people have not died in hospitals because of the Affordable Care Act?
That seemed rather extraordinary, even given the size of the United States.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Kessler then discusses a study by HHS which reviewed over 30,000 medical records to look at the number of patient problems during hospitalization.
The study looked at the impact of the Partnership for Patients, a $460-million program funded by the health law which ties together 3,800 hospitals in 27 “health engagement” networks, with the goal of reducing ten categories of “patient harms,” such as adverse drug events, pressure ulcers and catheter-associated urinary tract infections. The networks work together to identify possible solutions to common problems and then circulate those ideas among the various hospitals, with the goal of reducing preventable hospital-acquired conditions (HACs) by 40 percent and 30-day hospital readmissions by 20 percent
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
While Kessler does indicate that he does have a "minor quibble" with the wording of the President's statement, he does find that the
the president’s claim appears worthy of the elusive Geppetto Checkmark.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Because of the courage of the President and the Democrats in Congress in passing the ACA, approximately 50,000 Americans are alive today who wouldn't be otherwise.
Nevertheless, I don't expect that the Republican Party and Fox News will let the facts get in the way of their argument about how bad "Obamacare" is for America. And so I fully expect that we will continue to hear calls to repeal Obamacare in the 2016 election, no matter what the facts show. Hopefully, they will not be successful because the ACA is having a positive impact on the lives of people in this country.