Latest news with #Fact-CheckTeam
Yahoo
28-02-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Medicare drug price caps remain in place despite Trump executive order
A Jan. 21 Facebook post (direct link, archive link) claims President Donald Trump's actions are increasing prescription drug costs. 'BREAKING -- Trump RAISES prescription drug costs by as much as 4200%,' reads a screenshot of a post on X from commentator Tristan Snell featured in the Facebook post. 'He just reversed all the cost caps Biden negotiated for anyone on Medicare or Medicaid, over 120 MILLION Americans. He's pro Big Pharma -- and pro Big Insurance. He doesn't care about you. It was all LIES.' The post was shared more than 1,000 times in six days. More from the Fact-Check Team: How we pick and research claims | Email newsletter | Facebook page Trump's executive orders did not remove drug price caps put in place during Joe Biden's presidency. There are caps contained in a federal law that cannot be overturned with an executive action. Trump's return to office began with a blitz of executive actions, many of which overturned policies and actions from the Biden administration. But none of the actions affected drug price caps that were enacted under Biden, as the post claims. Caps on vaccines and insulin costs for Medicare recipients were instituted under the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, a federal law approved by Congress. As such, it cannot be repealed with an executive order. Trump did issue an order specifically repealing an October 2022 Biden executive order that had directed the secretary of health and human services to 'consider whether' the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Innovation Center should test 'new health care payment and delivery models that would lower drug costs and promote access to innovative drug therapies for beneficiaries.' Biden's order resulted in proposals that included caps on multiple commonly used drugs for Medicare patients but they were not initiated during his term. Fact check: Post mischaracterizes Dr. Oz comments on child deaths during the pandemic It's unclear what the claim of 4,200% increased drug costs comes from. Media reports before the Inflation Reduction Act price cap said out-of-pocket costs for insulin could cross $1,400 a month, roughly 4,000% of the $35 cap under the Inflation Reduction Act. It is important to note that almost nobody should have been paying that much for insulin. Medicare Part D recipients paid an average of $54 per prescription according to a July 2022 Kaiser Family Foundation study, while a 2000 Rand study found the manufacturer price for insulin averaged just below $100. And after the Inflation Reduction Act went into effect, the largest insulin manufacturers voluntarily announced programs that brought the price down to $35 or less for most patients. Those voluntary reductions are not affected by Trump's order. The Inflation Reduction Act also allows Medicare to negotiate drug prices, separate from the specific caps on insulin and certain vaccines, and the Biden administration announced lower prices on some drugs negotiated under that provision. Medicare patients won't see the lower prices until 2026. The Trump administration appears poised to preserve those lower prices, defending the program in a Feb. 19 court filing. USA TODAY reached out to Snell and the Facebook user who shared the claim but did not immediately receive responses. Library of Congress, Aug. 16, 2022, H.R.5376 - Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 USA TODAY, Jan. 3, 2024, Insulin $35 cap price now in effect, lowering costs for many Americans with diabetes Department of Health and Human Services, accessed Feb. 4, A Report in Response to the Executive Order on Lowering Prescription Drug Costs for Americans Department of Health and Human Services, Aug. 16, 2024, Commemorating the 2nd Anniversary of the Biden-Harris Lower Cost Prescription Drug Law Department of Health and Human Services, Jan. 17, HHS Announces 15 Additional Drugs Selected for Medicare Drug Price Negotiations in Continued Effort to Lower Prescription Drug Costs for Seniors The White House, Jan. 20, Initial Recissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions The White House, Oct. 14, 2022, Executive Order 14087—Lowering Prescription Drug Costs for Americans Kaiser Family Foundation, July 28, 2022, Insulin Out-of-Pocket Costs in Medicare Part D | KFF Rand Corp., Oct. 6, 2020, Insulin Prices Are Dramatically Higher in the United States Than in Other Countries Bloomberg Law, Feb. 20, Trump's DOJ Defends Drug Price Program in Third Circuit Brief Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or e-newspaper here. USA TODAY is a verified signatory of the International Fact-Checking Network, which requires a demonstrated commitment to nonpartisanship, fairness and transparency. Our fact-check work is supported in part by a grant from Meta. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Medicare drug price caps remain in place under Trump | Fact check
USA Today
25-02-2025
- Politics
- USA Today
Clip shows video game, not fighter jets escorting Trump in Air Force One
The claim: Video shows Trump's 'security team' escorting Air Force One A Feb. 20 Instagram post (direct link, archive link) includes a video of what appear to be multiple military jets flying near Air Force One. 'Donald Trump's security team keeping 47 safe in the sky,' text on the video reads. The Instagram post received more than 16,000 likes in five days. The claim also circulated widely on Threads. More from the Fact-Check Team: How we pick and research claims | Email newsletter | Facebook page Our rating: False The footage predates Trump's term as the 47th president by more than a year. The social media user who first shared it said the footage came from a video game. Footage predates Trump's election as 47th president The Instagram video appears to show eight fighter jets flying near a larger aircraft that resembles Air Force One, and at one point, two jets zoom ahead of it. Text in the video includes a common reference to Trump's status as the 47th president. But that's not Trump's 'security team" in the clip. That footage circulated on social media more than a year before the beginning of the presidential term it references. Fact check: Video of 'Trump Force One' buzzing airport from video game The clip in the post was previously shared to Instagram and YouTube on Oct. 17, 2023. Both posts have captions stating the videos consist of recorded gameplay from Digital Combat Simulator, a combat flight simulation game. The captions also include references to an acronym for the game and identify the clips as virtual reality. USA TODAY found no record of it online prior to that date. The social media user who shared it at the time told USA TODAY in an email that the footage was captured from the video game. USA TODAY previously debunked false or misleading claims that clips taken from video games show authentic footage from the Israel-Hamas war and the Russia-Ukraine war. USA TODAY reached out to the social media user who shared the clip but did not immediately receive a response. Check Your Fact also debunked the claim. Our fact-check sources Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or e-newspaper here. USA TODAY is a verified signatory of the International Fact-Checking Network, which requires a demonstrated commitment to nonpartisanship, fairness and transparency. Our fact-check work is supported in part by a grant from Meta.
Yahoo
25-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Clip shows video game, not fighter jets escorting Trump in Air Force One
A Feb. 20 Instagram post (direct link, archive link) includes a video of what appear to be multiple military jets flying near Air Force One. 'Donald Trump's security team keeping 47 safe in the sky,' text on the video reads. The Instagram post received more than 16,000 likes in five days. The claim also circulated widely on Threads. More from the Fact-Check Team: How we pick and research claims | Email newsletter | Facebook page The footage predates Trump's term as the 47th president by more than a year. The social media user who first shared it said the footage came from a video game. The Instagram video appears to show eight fighter jets flying near a larger aircraft that resembles Air Force One, and at one point, two jets zoom ahead of it. Text in the video includes a common reference to Trump's status as the 47th president. But that's not Trump's 'security team" in the clip. That footage circulated on social media more than a year before the beginning of the presidential term it references. Fact check: Video of 'Trump Force One' buzzing airport from video game The clip in the post was previously shared to Instagram and YouTube on Oct. 17, 2023. Both posts have captions stating the videos consist of recorded gameplay from Digital Combat Simulator, a combat flight simulation game. The captions also include references to an acronym for the game and identify the clips as virtual reality. USA TODAY found no record of it online prior to that date. The social media user who shared it at the time told USA TODAY in an email that the footage was captured from the video game. USA TODAY previously debunked false or misleading claims that clips taken from video games show authentic footage from the Israel-Hamas war and the Russia-Ukraine war. USA TODAY reached out to the social media user who shared the clip but did not immediately receive a response. Check Your Fact also debunked the claim. Iceman Fox 1, Feb. 24, Email exchange with USA TODAY @iceman_fox, Oct. 17, 2023, Instagram post @iceman_fox (YouTube), Oct. 17, 2023, SPOTTED: Air Force One flying today with extensive fighter escort, somewhere in the Middle East Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or e-newspaper here. USA TODAY is a verified signatory of the International Fact-Checking Network, which requires a demonstrated commitment to nonpartisanship, fairness and transparency. Our fact-check work is supported in part by a grant from Meta. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Clip misrepresented as Trump's Air Force One security | Fact check
USA Today
20-02-2025
- Science
- USA Today
Video shows rocky cliff in Antarctica, not giant tree stump
Video shows rocky cliff in Antarctica, not giant tree stump | Fact check Show Caption Hide Caption Satellite imagery tracks year-long path of world's largest iceberg Polar orbiting satellites have tracked the world's largest iceberg since it broke free in Antarctica's Weddell Sea in early November 2023. The claim: Video shows giant tree stump in Antarctica A Feb. 17 video (direct link, archive link) posted on Threads shows a helicopter flying over an ice shelf and arriving at an area where dark cliff faces stick out of the ice sheet. The helicopter lands at a building located on one of the cliff faces. "Giant Tree stump in Antarctica from before the Flood when this terrarium's climate was different? The Angels cut them down. Daniel 4:11-14," reads the video's caption. The video was reposted more than 300 times in three days. More from the Fact-Check Team: How we pick and research claims | Email newsletter | Facebook page Our rating: False The cliff faces in the video are not tree stumps. The video shows an area in Antarctica where rocky outcroppings jut up above the ice sheet. Video shows Antarctic base located on 'nunatak' The building shown in the video is South Africa's SANAE IV research station, which can be seen on Google Earth. The facility is positioned on Vesleskarvet, which is a "nunatak" − a rocky outcropping that sticks out above the ice sheet, according to the South African National Antarctic Programme. A 1993 draft environmental assessment of Vesleskarvet reported the feature was composed of mafic igneous rock estimated to be more than a billion years old. Mafic igneous rock is a material rich in specific minerals that forms when magma cools. The site is not a tree stump. Fact check: Hundreds of species infected with bird flu, not just chickens, cows, humans It is unclear if the video in the post is authentic or digitally generated. USA TODAY reached out to the social media user who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response. Our fact-check sources Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or e-newspaper here. USA TODAY is a verified signatory of the International Fact-Checking Network, which requires a demonstrated commitment to nonpartisanship, fairness and transparency. Our fact-check work is supported in part by a grant from Meta.
USA Today
19-02-2025
- Business
- USA Today
No proof Elon Musk ordered all federal workers to pass drug tests or be fired
Hear this story The claim: Elon Musk announced mandatory drug testing for all federal employees, giving them 30 days to pass or be fired A Feb. 15 Threads post (direct link, archive link) claims to share news of a mandate from a billionaire White House adviser to all federal employees. 'Elon Musk just dropped a bombshell: anyone with a federal paycheck has 30 days to pass a drug test or get fired,' reads text in the post. The post received more than 1,000 likes in three days. Similar versions of the claim circulated on X, on Instagram and elsewhere on Threads. More from the Fact-Check Team: How we pick and research claims | Email newsletter | Facebook page Our rating: False There is no credible evidence of the announcement from Musk referenced in the post. No evidence of drug-testing announcement from Musk Musk, the world's wealthiest person, was put in charge of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency and tasked with cutting costs and dismantling the federal bureaucracy. As part of their cash-savings push, his lieutenants have swept through numerous government agencies and the Trump administration has fired thousands of federal employees. There is no credible evidence, however, that he made the announcement that is attributed to him in the Threads post. The social media user who shared it did not provide any evidence to support the claim. Fact check: DOGE didn't find $600 million in Pentagon spending on sushi. That's satire None of Musk's posts on X since Dec. 10 include the word 'drug,' and his only two uses of the word 'test' in 2025 were in reference to his Starlink program. Additionally, there is no record of the supposed announcement on the official DOGE X account or its website. More than 3 million people were employed by the federal government as of November 2024, according to the Pew Research Center. Any new mandate requiring that many people to comply within 30 days surely would have generated widespread coverage by legitimate media outlets, and the terms of the testing program would have been made public through official government channels. Yet there is no credible evidence of such an order from any official agencies, and there have been no reports about it from credible media organizations. Jo McGuire, the executive director for the National Drug & Alcohol Screening Association – a trade group for the drug-testing industry – said she is unaware of the supposed requirement the post references. Her group has not been contacted about it, and none of its approximately 2,000 members, who come from 450 organizations and businesses, have made mention of it, she told USA TODAY. The claim appears to have originated from a Feb. 1 X post Musk shared in response to a user's question about the possibility of a 'federal workforce-wide, mandatory, immediate drug test.' While Musk called it a 'great idea,' he made no mention of any formal announcement, a 30-day deadline or any details on how such a program would work. Some – but not all – federal employees have long been subject to random drug testing, but that requirement predates by years the purported mandate from Musk, said Joe Reilly, a consultant and expert on drug testing in the workplace. Employees who carry firearms, operate motor vehicles with passengers, serve on flight crews as air traffic controllers or on railroad operating crews are among those in presumptive testing-designated positions, according to a Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration document. USA TODAY previously debunked false claims that Musk banned LGBTQ+ Pride on X, threatened to suspend critics of the Trump administration from the platform and shared a post comparing the Make America Great Again political movement to Nazi Germany. USA TODAY reached out to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and to several social media users who shared the claim but did not immediately receive any responses. Our fact-check sources Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or e-newspaper here. USA TODAY is a verified signatory of the International Fact-Checking Network, which requires a demonstrated commitment to nonpartisanship, fairness and transparency. Our fact-check work is supported in part by a grant from Meta.
