News Reporter: Fact Checker: Did Hillary Clinton give American uranium to the Russians for a big payment?

Friday, 28 October 2016

Fact Checker: Did Hillary Clinton give American uranium to the Russians for a big payment?

The truth behind the rhetoric

Did Hillary Clinton give American uranium to the Russians for a big payment?

The Trump campaign has been attacking Hillary Clinton over a Russian uranium deal, which has been scrutinized repeatedly since early 2015. We wrote about the deal briefly in a speech roundup a few months ago, but decided to take a deeper look since Trump is bringing it up again, saying: “Hillary Clinton gave them 20 percent of our uranium — gave Russia for a big payment."

There’s little factual basis to prove these connections. From 2009 to 2013, a Russian state-owned uranium energy company gained control of Uranium One, a uranium mining company headquartered in Toronto. Uranium One has holdings in the United States, which meant that the deal gave Russia rights to the uranium extracted at those sites, which represents 20 percent of the U.S. uranium production capacity.

When Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State, the State Department was one of nine agencies that comprised the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which vets potential national security impacts of transactions where a foreign government gains control of a U.S. company. But there’s no evidence Clinton herself was involved in approving the deal, or that it rose to the level of the secretary of state. Plus, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission also approved the deal separately.

There’s no evidence the Uranium One sale went forward in exchange “for a big payment” to the Clintons. Uranium One was merged with a company that was owned by Frank Giustra, a Canadian mining financier and donor to the Clinton Foundation. Giustra has had a long-time friendship with Bill Clinton, but he sold off his shares in the company before the Russian deal took place. Other Clinton Foundation donors have connections to the company, but the majority of their donations were made before the deal.

On the facts, this claim could have been rated Three Pinocchios. But Trump exaggerates too much by naming Hillary Clinton as the active agent, and asserting a quid pro quo as a fact, rather than a conjecture. That pushed the rating to Four Pinocchios.

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The facts about Obamacare premium increases

It was announced this week that premiums for policies sold on health exchanges under the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare” law) are going up an average of 22 percent in 2017. Four years ago, when President Obama predicted that Obamacare would result in lower health-insurance premiums, we gave him Three Pinocchios after reviewing reports on the potential impact of the law. We found that the law’s provisions "will almost certainly increase premiums, though tax subsidies will help mitigate the impact for a little over half of the people in the exchanges."

There’s a lot of confusion over the law and who it affects. So we put together an explainer to answer some key questions about Obamacare and the increases. Below is a summary of what’s going on; you can read the full Q&A here.

The Obamacare market is under pressure because the mix of people signing up for health care under plans offered on the exchanges has been unhealthier than expected. This has led to the increase in premiums.

Employers generally subsidize a large part of the monthly premium for their workers. You need to buy a policy through the exchanges in order to qualify for a subsidy. Most people on the exchange get tax credits that mitigate the cost of premiums, which has resulted in substantial decrease in the number of Americans without health insurance. Those people are mainly the winners in Obamacare, as the tax credits shield them from sharp premium increases.

But about half of the people in the individual market are not getting such tax credits — and their premiums are increasing because of mandates in the law, a sicker-than-expected pool of applicants and decreasing competition because insurance companies have found it too difficult to make money. These people are the losers, at least so far.

Happy #FactCheckFriday!

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— Michelle Ye Hee Lee