The self-appointed “fact”-checkers at Politifraud are at it again. This time they’re going after a Crossroads GPS ad that makes a point that I’ve been making for years; President Obama’s promise that “If you like your health care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health care plan.”

It was a lie. Anyone with half a brain knew it. You can’t fundamentally transform the health care system, require numerous minimum coverage levels and at the same time assure people that they can keep the plan they have now. President Obama has fundamentally changed health care economics (for the worse) and yet he pretended that that change would have no effect on the public.

Since I don’t think that Angie Drobnic Holan and Bill Adair are slack-jawed drooling idiots, that makes their assessment of Obama’s promise evidence that they are dishonest, lying hacks.

First, the ad:

Politifraud:

Obama often said during his 2008 campaign for president that if people liked their health insurance, they wouldn’t have to change it under his proposal, and he continued to say it as president.

"If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan," he said at a 2009 town hall meeting.

Stop there for a moment and think about that quoted statement. When you as an English-speaking individual read those 14 words, do you think Obama’s saying this:

What Obama was talking about was the way his plan left in place the current health care system in the United States.

Seriously? So, according to Politifraud, "If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan" = “We will not institute a single-payer system.”

Well, if you’re going to twist the plain meaning of Obama’s words into that, then I suppose Politifraud should make Humpty Dumpty its mascot.

Then there’s this beaut from their summary.

In fact, the health care plan Obama promised on the campaign trail looks an awful lot like what was put into law: Leave the existing health care system in place, beef up regulations on insurance companies, and offer assistance to the uninsured to help them sign up for health coverage.

When you think of Obamacare, are these the features you think of? Or is there one missing?

On the point of many adults, we don't want to put in a situation in which on the front end we are mandating them, we are forcing them to purchase insurance, and if the subsidies are inadequate the burden is on them and they will be penalized.

Yes, other than the biggest, most onerous part of Obamacare, the individual mandate, it’s an awful lot like what Obama promised on the campaign trail.