Pawlenty Releases Most Factually Inaccurate Ad to Date

Yesterday Tim Pawlenty released a new TV ad named “premiums” (find it here).  Amazingly, Pawlenty has actually outdone himself and released the most factually inaccurate ad to date. 
more insideTo start with, the woman in the ad claims that Mike Hatch “took over” her HMO and the press release that accompanied the ad’s launch claims that “Mike Hatch controlled Medica.”  This statement is absurdly inaccurate.  When Medica was separated from Allina, Hatch recommended a list of people to the District Court who, if chosen, would then be responsible for forming the Board of Directors for the newly independent Medica.  The court, not Hatch, appointed the administrators who then proceeded to appoint themselves to the Board (a move with which Hatch disagreed and attempted to prevent).

A no point during this process was Hatch in any position that could even be confused with having “taken over” Medica.  And the “four years [that] Mike Hatch controlled Medica” seem to be a figment of Brian McClung’s (Tim Pawlenty’s campaign Press Secretary) imagination.  Mike Hatch was never in control of Medica.

Moreover, the ad (and the press release) implies that Mike Hatch pursued and approved rate increases.  But not only is there no record of Hatch ever pursuing such a policy, as the Attorney General he never even had the power to do so.  As Governor Tim Pawlenty (hopefully) knows that the only agencies with the jurisdiction to approve or deny rate hikes are the Minnesota Department of Commerce and the Department of Health (it’s laid out in a pretty straight forward manner here).

Tim Pawlenty has known from the beginning of this campaign that he can’t run on his own record and this is just another example of him trying to distract the people of Minnesota.  The reality is that because of Tim Pawlenty 36,000 people were thrown off MnCare in 2005 and if his policies had been enacted another 40,000 would have been tossed in 2006.