Politifact has given a "false" rating to the claim in a Ted Cruz political action committee ad that "Donald Trump said the government is going to pay for everybody to have healthcare." But the claim is demonstrably true. The problem is that the author of the attempted fact check didn't study his source material carefully enough.
I'll start with the full section of the "60 Minutes" interview that's clipped in the ad (sections quoted in the ad in bold), then move on to why Politifact's defense of Trump is wrong.
Here's "60 Minutes":
Scott Pelley: What's your plan for Obamacare?
Donald Trump: Obamacare's going to be repealed and replaced. Obamacare is a disaster if you look at what's going on with premiums where they're up 45, 50, 55 percent.
Scott Pelley: How do you fix it?
Donald Trump: There's many different ways, by the way. Everybody's got to be covered. This is an un-Republican thing for me to say because a lot of times they say, "No, no, the lower 25 percent that can't afford private." But —
Scott Pelley: Universal healthcare?
Donald Trump: I am going to take care of everybody. I don't care if it costs me votes or not. Everybody's going to be taken care of much better than they're taken care of now.
Scott Pelley: The uninsured person is going to be taken care of how?
Donald Trump: They're going to be taken care of. I would make a deal with existing hospitals to take care of people. And, you know what, if this is probably —
Scott Pelley: Make a deal? Who pays for it?
Donald Trump: — the government's gonna pay for it. But we're going to save so much money on the other side. But for the most it's going to be a private plan and people are going to be able to go out and negotiate great plans with lots of different competition with lots of competitors with great companies and they can have their doctors, they can have plans, they can have everything.
Politifact's Jon Greenberg writes that the ad, "left out Trump saying that he was talking about people of limited means, the lower 25 percent, who can't afford private insurance."
This is wrong. It's clear from the context that Trump was actually referring to Republicans as only wanting to cover the bottom 25 percent — a view that he disagreed with in favor of covering everybody. How do we know this? Because of something called a pronoun.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politifact-is-wrong-cruz-is-right-trump-did-say-government-should-pay-for-everybodys-healthcare/article/2585449?custom_click=rss
