AP FACT CHECK: Trump overstates cost of Obama’s health plan

WASHINGTON – A claim from the second presidential debate and how it stacks up with the facts:

DONALD TRUMP: Obamacare “is going to be one of the biggest line items very shortly.”

THE FACTS: Trump vastly exaggerates the cost of President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act. The cost of the coverage expansion in Obama’s health care law is nowhere near what the government spends on Medicare and Medicaid, for example.

According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the government will spend $110 billion this year on “Obamacare” coverage. By comparison, Medicare will cost an estimated $590 billion, and the federal share of Medicaid will amount to $370 billion.

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Contributed by Associated Press writer Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar.

EDITOR’S NOTE _ A look at the veracity of claims by political figures