Obama declares war on obesity, claims could save Medicare $1 Trillion

Obama declares war on obesity, claims could save Medicare $1 Trillion: "By now many are used to the ongoing manipulation of facts perpetrated within the health care debate, but as the President attempts to regain control of his own message his claims and statistical manipulation have crossed beyond the borders of absurd. In a conference call for his campaign organization, Organizing for American (formerly the Organizing for Obama), the president backed up his claims of how he intends to fulfill the promise of cost savings within Medicare without cutting benefits. The President's solution is simply to put America on a weight loss plan. According to the President, 'If we went back to the obesity rates that existed back in the 1980s, the Medicare system over several years could save as much as a trillion dollars.'

The problem with President - Err - Dr. Obama's assessment is that is A) it simply isn't true and B) how exactly is the US going to return to 1980's obesity rates.

As Politifact, Factcheck.org, The Centers for Disease Control and others have pointed out the Presidents claim, also made in 2007, based on a left-wing think tank study has no statistical data to back it up. The reality is that is obesity rates have doubled over the past three decades, but the CDC and RTI estimate that obesity contributes"