After skipping the issue of healthcare in their first debate, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump sparred over the Affordable Care Act Sunday night's town hall-style debate. But based on the fact-checkers, many of the claims made were false.
Fact-checkers from Politifact, CNN, ABC News and others have been busy trying to separate truth from fiction among the many comments made in what is being called one of the ugliest presidential debates in American history.
At one point, Trump's said health insurance costs are rising by as much as 71 percent. ""When I watch the deals being made," he said, "when I watch what's happening with some horrible things like Obamacare, where your health insurance and healthcare is going up by numbers that are astronomical, 68 percent, 59 percent 71 percent."
[Also: Trump could wreak havoc on Obamacare, legal experts say]
ABC News, however, ranked this statement as mostly false. Healthcare and health insurance costs have been rising, but there doesn't seem to be a direct link to the numbers cited by Trump. Insurance premiums, out-of-pocket costs and employer costs to insure employees are indeed climbing, but the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has offered data suggesting the costs are nowhere near those percentages. According to the agency, the average premium under the Affordable Care Act for 2016 plans rose to $408 per month, which is about a 9 percent increase from this time last year.
Clinton, meanwhile, delivered some praise to the ACA during Sunday night's debate, claiming the country now has a 90 percent insured rate.
"Right now, we are at 90 percent health insurance coverage," she said. "That's the highest we have ever been."
The fact-checkers at CNN say this is true. In fact, with 20 million more Americans now in the ranks of the insured, the number is slightly more than 90 percent. The National Health Interview Survey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the uninsured rate was 8.6 percent during the first three months of this year, which would put the insured rate at 91.4 percent.
Further criticizing Obamacare, Trump lamented its cost on Sunday, saying it "is going to be one of the biggest line items very shortly."
[Also: Donald Trump would let Congress dictate health policy, Marilyn Tavenner says]
Not so, the Detroit News reported. The cost of the coverage expansion in the health law is far short of the cost of Medicare and Medicaid. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the government will spend $110 billion this year on ACA coverage, while Medicare alone will cost $590 billion, and the federal share of Medicaid will see $370 billion.
Trump also claimed that Clinton supports a single-payer health system, saying she "wants to go to single-payer, which means the government basically rules everything."
This is also false. It was her rival in the Democratic primary race, Bernie Sanders, who was a staunch supporter of a government-run healthcare system. In July, Clinton said she supported a "public option," which is essentially a government-run health plan that would be offered alongside private insurance coverage. But that's different than single-payer, in which the government system is basically the only option.
In raising the subject of a single-payer system, Trump criticized the Canadian system, saying, "If you ever noticed Canadians, when they need a big operation, when something happens, they come into the United States, in many cases because their system is so slow it's catastrophic in certain ways."
According to 2015 numbers from conservative Canadian think tank Frasier Institute, and reported by CNN, "more than 52,000 Canadians received non-emergency medical treatment outside Canada" in 2014. That was an increase of about 10,000 from the year before, and the report cites long wait times as the primary reason.
But 52,000 people is a small fraction of the 32 million people who receive benefits in Canada, so while the statement is technically true, according to CNN, it's also misleading.
Trump has been an outspoken proponent of repealing the ACA, and characteristically, Clinton pushed back on Sunday, saying that if the ACA is repealed, "all of those benefits I have mentioned are lost to everybody … and then we will have to start all over again."
That's essentially correct, according to U.S. News and World Report. A complete repeal would wipe out ACA provisions, including those that block insurers from choosing not to cover people with pre-existing conditions.
Twitter: @JELagasse