Fact-checking as it's supposed to be

CNN thoroughly beclowned itself a few weeks ago when Wolf Blitzer fact-checked a Saturday Night Live sketch poking fun of Barack Obama's near-total lack of achievement since his inauguration in January. Today the AP partially redeems the mainstream media with a pretty tough fact-checking of the left's demonization of the health insurance industry.

Quick quiz: What do these enterprises have in common? Farm and construction machinery, Tupperware, the railroads, Hershey sweets, Yum food brands and Yahoo? Answer: They're all more profitable than the health insurance industry. In the health care debate, Democrats and their allies have gone after insurance companies as rapacious profiteers making "immoral" and "obscene" returns while "the bodies pile up."

Ledgers tell a different reality. Health insurance profit margins typically run about 6 percent, give or take a point or two. That's anemic compared with other forms of insurance and a broad array of industries, even some beleaguered ones.

This is similar to the demagoguery the Democrats indulged in last year to smear Exxon-Mobil as another "rapacious profiteer" by tossing around the amount of their "obscene" quarterly profit, which was only around 8% of their revenue at the time.

The ability to turn a profit is a good thing. When companies are making healthy profits they're able to expand and employ more people. When profits are anemic or non-existent, they contract and lay people off. It's really pretty simple. Democrats are the enemy of a good business climate and a healthy economy.