Facts Matter: Biden takes credit for Trump-signed bill
During a news conference earlier this month at the White House, President Joe Biden touted a consumer protection law that guards against patients being hit with unexpected medical charges.
"We just made surprise medical bills illegal in this country," Biden said.
It's true that his administration last year developed the rules and implemented the law before the Jan. 1, 2022, deadline, but Biden can't take credit for creating it, according to The Associated Press. The act was signed by former President Donald Trump in December 2020, after the election but before Biden took office.
The bipartisan legislation is designed to protect insured patients from receiving surprise medical bills and unanticipated charges for out-of-network services. During an emergency, patients sometimes don't know if a medical specialist, such as an anesthesiologist or radiologist, is covered by their insurance.
During a 2019 speech, Trump pushed for the bill as a chance to combat rising medical bills, The Washington Post reported.
"My administration is eager to work with both parties," Trump said. "From what I understand, we have bipartisan support, which is kind of shocking."
Vaccine didn't kill Louie Anderson
Recently, as celebrities have died, social media users falsely list the COVID-19 vaccine as the cause of their deaths.
Following actors Betty White and Bob Saget on this path is comedian Louie Anderson, who died Jan. 21.
A recent Facebook post includes a screenshot of an Instagram post showing Anderson with two flight attendants and the caption, "It's an early morning, but have Louie Anderson on our (flight). He's off to do Conan." Text with the Jan. 22 Facebook post begins, "Louie Anderson was a passenger on my cousin's flight two days ago."
The post goes on to say Anderson began to feel ill during the flight and that he had received a coronavirus vaccine a few weeks prior.
"Not true," Anderson's publicist <URL destination="https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/jan/25/viral-image/social-media-claims-about-louie-andersons-flight-s/">Glenn Schwartz told PolitiFact.
</URL>Schwartz had previously told reporters that Anderson died from complications of diffuse large B cell lymphoma, a blood cancer, PolitiFact said.
The timeline also doesn't add up.
PolitiFact said the photo of Anderson couldn't be found on Instagram, but several photos of the comedian wearing the same hat and sweatshirt are all from 2016 to 2018.
And earlier this month he couldn't be on his way to "do Conan" because Conan O'Brien ended his long-running talk show on June 24, 2021.
Anderson's last appearance on Conan's show was March 16, 2021.
Litter boxes not in school bathroom
A video making the rounds on social media shows a community member speaking during a school board meeting in Michigan.
"WATCH: At a recent school board meeting, it was revealed that a Michigan school placed LITTER BOXES in the bathroom for students that identify as cats. Unbelievable," reads the text with the post.
The woman in the video claims students "are put in an environment where there are kids that identify as a furry. A cat or a dog, whatever. And so, yesterday I heard that at least one of our schools in our town, has in one of the unisex bathrooms a litter box for the kids that identify as cats."
But there is no truth to this claim, according to Reuters.
Midland Public Schools superintendent Michael E. Sharrow issued a statement to debunk the false post.
"Let me be clear in this communication. There is no truth whatsoever to this false statement/accusation!" Sharrow said. "There have never been litter boxes within MPS schools."
UFO was added to altered Navy video
A video posted on Facebook purportedly shows a fighter jet landing on the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford in the Mediterranean while a UFO sits nearby, on the deck of the ship.
The narrator on the clip, which has been viewed more than 100,000 times, says, "As it goes to touch down, we actually see a triangular-shaped UFO, like something that would be right out of an alien movie."
But the video is fake, according to USA Today. The original video has been altered to include the triangular-shaped UFO.
The unaltered video, issued by the U.S. Navy, shows the jet landing on the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier, but in the Atlantic Ocean, not the Mediterranean. The UFO is not on the deck.
The official Navy video shows the jet landing from four different angles and the UFO doesn't appear in any of them.
• Bob Oswald is a veteran Chicago-area journalist and former news editor of the Elgin Courier-News. Contact him at boboswald33@gmail.com.