(bright music) - [Announcer] This is a production of WEDU PBS, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota.

(bright music) - [Announcer] Right now on WEDU, the state legislature meets to deal with the crisis in homeowner's insurance.

Will insurance premiums come down?

The governor wants a statewide investigation of the COVID vaccine, and PolitiFact announces its Lie of The Year for 2022.

All coming up next on "Florida This Week."

(adventurous music) - Welcome back, PolitiFact, the Independent National Fact Checking organization based in St. Petersburg named his annual Lie of the Year this week.

(metal rings) The designation goes to Russian president Vladimir Putin for his false statements, justifying the attack on the neighboring country of Ukraine.

Among the lies, Putin told that Ukraine was led by Nazis and conducting genocide against civilians.

(Putin speaking in Russian) Katie Sanders is the managing editor of PolitiFact, a fact-checking organization owned by the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, which releases The Lie of The Year every year, and Katie, nice to see you again.

- Great to be back, thank you.

- Okay, so this is the first time that you picked an international leader.

All the time if somebody's making a lie, usually it's somebody from the US, right?

- And especially in an election year, a huge election year that we had where we covered so many important themes, election denialism, the after-effects of the Supreme Court's abortion decision, and how that was portrayed by both sides of the campaign trail and misrepresented in a lot of ways, we had a lot to choose from, but when we were going back into our archives from the year, what really stuck out was not just one statement, but just a litany of claims from either Putin or the Russian government propaganda apparatus denying, downplaying, just falsely portraying the events of the war in Ukraine, and so when you compare that with the rhetoric, it just felt like that really needed to be called out with Lie of the Year.

- The stakes are really high because it's not just lying about healthcare or lying about an election, when people are dying.

- People were dying.

Thousands and thousands of people were dying as a result of Putin's war that was premised on false statements, we can call them lies now, we do it only one time of the year.

But because of Putin's lies, they had extremely significant consequences and important, most importantly for Ukrainians who are suffering as a result.

But what we also showed with our story was how it had worldwide consequences, including for Americans.

- Well, one of those consequences is that the Kremlin put out the word after a bombing took place at a maternity hospital early on in the war against Ukraine, where a woman who happens to be pregnant is carried out on a stretcher, she's obviously bleeding and she later dies from her injuries.

The Kremlin put out the word that she was a crisis actor, so you fact-checked this, right?

- We did fact-check that, it was the Kremlin's reps in London, we fact-checked a lot of different claims from the Russian embassies in Canada, I think in Africa at one point as well, but this was coming out of the account in London, and honestly, it's not new for Russia to dismiss something outrageous as, "Oh, that's crisis actor, that's a false flag, that's," you know, "that's US tricks," right?

But the evidence was just so plain for anyone outside of the Russian government to see that it was just, you know, we use a pants on fire, which has kind of a lighter touch, but it doesn't do it justice, you know?

For just a wildly ridiculously untrue statement that is counter to all of the evidence on the ground.

- And the Kremlin claims were picked up here in the US and amplified.

- That was the astonishing thing that we realized.

So there's one American news in the US that, you know, commonly repeats kind of far right talking points and claims, we've checked them before, but this one claim by a commentator named Pearson Sharp was just really echoing what the Russian government had been saying about the Mariupol attack, and was saying that this was, you know, another false flag was happening, even invoking Joe Biden and his cronies in his statement.

So, you know, we saw other US pundits echo the Russian government's reasons for the war, and its excuses.

We named them in the story, they include Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, but, you know, I think that was important, that was important to show too, that, you know, there are Americans here who are also culpable for repeating and disseminating these lies.

- And later the BBC reported that the woman had indeed died, they talked to her widower in England, who had moved to the west, and her name was Irina Kalinina, she was a real person, not a crisis actor.

- Exactly.

- How do you decide, I mean, do you have a panel deciding what The Lie of The Year is gonna be?

- We do decide kind of at the leadership level of PolitiFact and Poynter, they make the final, we make the final call, but this year I did poll the whole team 'cause I wanted to, you know, see if there was something I was missing in kind of creating a short list of claims, and we discussed some of the other themes I brought up, you know, election denialism we covered all year long, but when we talked after the election, it kind of felt like, well, maybe that one doesn't have as much, as many legs as we thought, you know.

And also the Russian claims are just about life or death.

So our team was talking about it, and we just became more and more convinced that this was the, this met the criteria for Lie of the Year, the most important criteria is significance that speaks to a broader truth in our society.

- I think there are 40,000 civilians killed so far in Ukraine, so it is hugely consequential.

One last question, we only have about 30 seconds, what did your readers think was the lie of the year?

- Well, Putin came in at number two, so I think we're not so far off, but a plurality of our readers thought it should go to Donald Trump again, who's already won it three times, so he's plenty of Lies of The Year trophies in his house, you know, figuratively speaking.

But his claim about his handling of classified records and his whataboutism when he said, "Obama, look at Obama, he mishandled 33 million records," I think it was.

- Is that true?

- Some of them nuclear, it was pants on fire.

- Yeah.

- You know, that's what our readers favored.

- All right.

Well, Katie, it's always good to see you, thank you for fact checking for us.

- Thank you for having me back, appreciate it.

(gentle soothing music) - The state legislature this week held a three-day special session to try to fix the sharply increasing cost of homeowner's insurance in Florida.

(metal rings) Among the measures passed there's a $1 billion subsidy to insurance companies to help them pay for reinsurance.

The measure makes it harder for homeowners to retain attorneys to help force insurance companies to pay in full for damage, it would drive customers of publicly-owned citizens property insurance into significantly costlier policies on the private market, and insurers would need to pay or deny a claim in 60 days as opposed to the current 90 days.

The special session came after Florida was hit by two devastating hurricanes this year.

Already, Floridians pay three times the national average for homeowners insurance, but politicians in Tallahassee were making no promises this week that homeowners will see immediate relief next year, not surprisingly, Republicans and Democrats see the problem differently, Republicans say it's the cost of litigation that is driving up insurance premiums.

Democrats say insurance companies are overcharging and making excess profits, and paying CEOs and their shareholders too much.

Mary Ellen Klas is the Capitol Bureau chief for the Tampa Bay Times in the Miami Herald, she joins us now from Tallahassee.

And Hi, Mary Ellen, how are you?

- Hi, Rob, good to be here.

- So I guess everybody's wondering, will homeowner's insurance rates be coming down at all based on what the legislature did this week?

- Well, that is the hope, but even the legislative leaders have acknowledged that it may be as much as one or two years before we see any impact on the bottom line of homeowners insurance in the state, and that is because a lot of these reforms are really intended to increase competition in the market, and in order to bring people into the market, you've gotta have companies that wanna do business here, and they don't wanna do business if they pay, you know, if they're not getting paid the kind of premiums they expect.

So premiums are gonna be high, and they hope that that will continue to lure more companies in, and then when the competition arrives, they hope that then prices will start declining.

- Would it be fair to say that insurance companies are pretty happy after the session?

- You know, there are not a lot of insurance companies that are feeling very happy in Florida right now to begin with.

I think they are breathing a sigh of relief that these are the reforms that they have been asking for for a long time, and they're finally, they have finally been advanced.

- And what are consumer groups saying about what the legislature did?

- Well, you know, sadly, there aren't that many consumer groups in operation anymore, but there are, some of the Democrats kind of brought in consumer-related issues, and they're very concerned that, because the answer to what they see is out of control, what the industry says is out-of-control litigation, the answer is to put new hurdles and barriers on challenging your claim, your insurance, what your insurance company is willing to pay you, and that is something that is probably going to restrain the rights and the ability of homeowners to push back against what their insurance says, so Democrats say that this is a little lopsided, that it's benefiting the industry more than it is consumers.

There are some consumer protections here that require the industry, you know, your insurance carrier to respond more quickly, it limits the amount of time they have, it requires some mitigation or mediation from both parties, but it still is sort of heavily designed to benefit the industry's sort of bottom line.

- The insurance industry's bottom line.

I wanna ask you about the insurance commissioner in the state of Florida, he resigned this week.

Have you reported on why he might have resigned right after the special session?

- Well, I will tell you that in the last several last month or so, there has been some rumbling that this may be that David Altmaier, the insurance commissioner, is kind of on his way out and planning to retire.

There are two reasons why that may be happening, one may be that legislators indeed are unhappy with his performance.

If you think that might have been the case, I think we would've heard about that sooner.

There's another reason, and that is that the state law, voters put a constitutional amendment that required that anybody who is in state government beginning on January 1st, 2023, they may not go back into lobbying their old, you know, their old agency, for six years.

So this six-year lobbying ban has kind of led to a kind of an exodus of state officials all across government who wanna leave government before this ban takes place, and David Altmaier is speculated to be among those that was influenced by that law change.

- And we'll see if he registers as a lobbyist.

Is there any limit now, can you go right into lobbying after you leave state employee?

- If you're a legislator, there's a limit, but there is not for people and agencies.

- Well, Mary Ellen Klas, as always, thank you so much for shining a light on this.

- Good to be with you, take care.

(gentle soothing music) - Now here to talk about the special session of the legislature are Chip Merlin, who is a trial lawyer in Tampa and a Republican, and Vic DiMaio, who is a political consultant and a Democrat.

Chip, I wanna start with you, what do you think about the special session?

Was this, as you wrote in a previous column this month, a sellout to the insurance industry?

- Well, I think it was, I don't, the insurance industry and their lobbyists got absolutely everything that they wanted for, as soon as I saw the bill come out last Friday night at the last minute, I said that the lobbyists are smoking their cigars and eating caviar tonight because they did a tremendous job, they were able to get rid of the assignment of benefits, which was an an issue, they were able to eliminate the attorney's fees that they have to pay for when Florida citizens beat them in court, so that took away that.

they got over a billion dollars that's going to their reinsurance fund, they're gonna be able to raise rates.

There's, I mean, there's nothing that, I can't imagine what else they might want out of this, so- - But the insurance industry and many in the legislature say it's trial lawyers like yourself that are driving up the cost of homeowner's insurance here in Florida, what do you say?

- Well, they're partially right in terms of that there was AOB abuse, and for the last three legislative sessions there was a piecemeal attempts at that, it actually- - The AOB is assignment of- - Assignment of benefits, so it's like, like doctors being able to charge whatever they want with health insurance, and we saw that huge increase in health insurance in the '90s, early 2000s, and what are we gonna do about national health?

It's sort of the same thing with restoration contractors doing sort of the same thing, and so the legislature was addressing that, what the insurance industry wanted to do was completely do away with it, which they did, and they could have, and they could have done maybe one other piece of legislation by shortening up some of the statute limitations that the reinsurance industry wanted, that's very similar to what the rest of the country would've had and stop right there, but they got everything else they wanted, and a lot of anti-consumer, anti-policy holder legislation that they got completely through, which now has the effect of they can charge whatever they want and if they don't pay the claim, so what?

There's no way for the private individual to attack the insurance company for bad treatment.

- Victor, there were some Democrats up there in the legislature who said, "Let's put a temporary freeze on insurance rates just for this year to give policy holders some relief," the legislature said no.

- No, because frankly the reality is this, there are 10 insurance lobbyists for every one attorney lobbyists in Tallahassee.

So this 200-page bill was bought, and sold, and paid for by the insurance industry, which has more money than God.

The entire Republican legislature, the cabinet, and the governor are in the pockets of the insurance company, this was an insurance company bill, which they handed to the legislature, I defy any legislator to read that 200-page bill, and they just voted on it because they said, "Do it."

So they voted on it, like Chip says, this thing is very anti-consumer, you cannot, they've restricted your ability to sue an insurance company.

How many people have gone to the insurance company?

My dad was in insurance company, in business for many years as well, and I worked for the insurance commissioner's office when we used to regulate insurance industry, we do not regulate like we used to, there's no regulation of insurance companies like there used to be, and the insurance companies are the biggest cry babies in the world, they get everything they want and they still want more, so the fact of the matter is, I should, I'll give you an example how anti-consumer is.

If you have a policy and you're trying to shop for a better plan, if there's a, within 20%, if you have a policy with Citizens and it's cheaper, you gotta buy the 20% more expensive private policy, how is that consumer- - But insurance companies say, "Look, we're being hit by these giant hurricanes, it's driving up the cost in Florida, that's why homeowners insurance in Florida is well above the national average, three times the national average."

- That's partially true because, frankly, Florida, we have a lot of exposure to hurricanes, but there's hurricanes that hit people way up north in New York, so that's mostly BS because the reinsurance industry is a worldwide, you can go to Lloyd's of London and buy reinsurance, we've given another payout to the insurance company, is our taxpayer money is giving them billions of dollars to back up if there are any losses, so the fact of the matter is, the insurance companies, even when we had Hurricane Andrew, they cried like babies that they lost money there, but within a year they were back in the paint.

- Chip, what happens to people who live in condos right now?

What happens to that condo association that's facing a bigger insurance bill this year?

What happens to the people that live in those condos?

- The bills are gonna get bigger.

I hate to say that, they're gonna get bigger for two reasons.

Number one, because the legislation was passed earlier this summer, they're gonna be hit with these updated reserve requirements for maintenance because of the Champlain Towers incident that fell down, so all those are gonna go up, but there's also the issue of, if you were insured by Citizens, you're now gonna have to buy flood insurance.

As crazy as it sounds, you might be on the 20th floor of a condominium and our legislature is now requiring you to go buy flood insurance, it's the craziest law I've ever seen written, but that's exactly what happened.

- Was there a way to bring down or at least stabilize homeowner's insurance rates in Florida that the legislature didn't deal with this time?

- I think there is, and I've indicated that two things that could have done away with AOBs and then just allowed insurance companies to limit the statute of limitations like other states, to two years.

We didn't do that, we went a lot broader than that, and it's not gonna mean that the rates are gonna go down right away because it takes a period of time for those laws to take, you know, an impact.

And so the, I really believe what happened is the insurance industry saw some of what the changes in the legislation were going on were actually decreasing the litigation, which they say was the root of all evil, and you brought up where they also said say, "Well, we have a lot of hurricanes," which is true, the same way some people have wildfires, and some people have earthquakes in other parts of the country, which make those areas have higher rates than others, but, you know, rather than waiting for that period of time, well, we better take care of it right now 'cause this is the last chance we got, let's create our own crisis.

And they've got a very favorable, and their media and PR just pushed it out and made, is my understanding is like the governor pushed this through and everybody had to vote lockstep for the Republicans to go ahead and agree to this legislation or face the wrath that, "Well, we're gonna see what's gonna happen to you," we have a very strong governor, and it's just kind of authoritarian is what's going on right now in my view.

- And you say that as a Republican.

- I say that as a Republican.

- All right, well, this week Governor DeSantis called on the state Supreme Court to empanel a grand jury to investigate what he called wrongdoing linked to the COVID-19 vaccine, including what he said were false and misleading claims about the efficacy of the doses.

(metal rings) His apparent targets are the pharmaceutical companies that have profited from the COVID vaccine.

The DeSantis administration says that the pharmaceutical industry has a notorious history of misleading the public for financial gain, and the grand jury will probe the development, promotion, and distribution of vaccines purported to prevent COVID-19 infection, symptoms, and transmission.

Most of the medical community, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the FDA, and Johns Hopkins, have said that the COVID vaccine is safe and effective in preventing the virus and protecting against serious symptoms.

During the early days of the COVID outbreak, the governor himself was a big promoter of vaccines.

- So here's, I think, the most important thing with the data.

If you are vaccinated, fully vaccinated, the chance of you getting seriously ill or dying from COVID is effectively zero.

I think the data's very clear on the vaccinations, you're much less likely to be hospitalized or die if you're vaccinated.

We brought vaccines and were criticized for doing it, to places like Century Village and Broward, King's Point, and Delray Beach.

We are bringing directly into senior communities.

- All right, so Vic, that was the governor last year- - Yes.

- As he was handing out vaccines.

- Right.

- Now he's changed his mind, he wants an investigation to the safety of these vaccines.

What's the governor's up to?

- Because Governor Ron DeSantis is running for President of the United States and he's running against, his biggest obstacle is Donald Trump, so he is trying to out-Donald-Trump Donald Trump, and this is total BS, I mean, look, I have a world-renowned brother who's a heart surgeon, and he says, "If you don't take a vaccine, you might as well take a gun, put one bullet in, and keep clicking because that's your chances of dying."

Myself personally, I've had four shots from the Pfizer, I feel perfectly fine, I'm sitting here alive, talking to y'all today, and I'd rather be safe than sorry.

So he was right the first time, now he's running for President of the United States, now he's pandering to the right flank of the party to gather as many votes that he can pull away from Donald Trump, and that's what this is about, this is ridiculous.

What is the grand jury that he's gonna empanel gonna say?

I mean, what are they gonna investigate?

This is gonna be like the, what is that, the name, that squad, the voting squad that's been out there, they've got, you know, an army of FDLE agents.

They arrested a bunch of people and the judge threw every single one of those cases out.

And if they do an investigation this way, it's not gonna come up with anything substantial unless they do like, he gets Lopano to say a bunch of the crazy stuff he does, which are part of the anti-vax crowd.

- So Chip, as a trial lawyer, I mean, I think trial lawyers would be interested to see if these vaccines caused widespread damage to the people that took them.

What do you think about the need?

Is there a need for a grand jury?

- I applaud Governor DeSantis for doing this.

As leaders, you have to go with what the data is that you have, but if people provide you the wrong data, and I think that's what the governor is indicating right here, we need to go back and see really what happened here, and he's absolutely right.

You know, big pharma has caused a lot of damage to the American populace, and why should we trust that data?

We have to do it at the time because we have an emergency, and I think that was his point, and he did the right thing there, I think he's doing the right thing right here.

He's not saying whether or not they're guilty or not he's saying it's worthy to have an investigation, and to that I applaud him, I think he's doing the right thing.

- And Victor, he's asked for a grand jury investigation.

Are you satisfied that science will be consulted as he conducts this investigation?

- Well, you know, I mean, with all due respect to my lawyer friend here, you know, lawyers love to sue anything if you have, you know, whatever the price is for a lawsuit and go after big pharma 'cause they got deep pockets, almost as worse as the insurance companies, but the fact of the matter is, the data is that we are the third largest state in the country, we've got 20 million Floridians here, and we had the highest death rates because of all this BS that Donald Trump and DeSantis says about not wearing masks, not getting shots, and people were dying like flies, it was a worldwide pandemic, they had to do something- - All right.

- To prevent the deaths.

- 30 Seconds.

- If that's true and they have nothing to worry about, why not be transparent and show all the secrets and really what the backup is for that data?

It'll show that way and there won't be any charges, and the advice that was given by our governor and by our former President that we ought to go out and do this was right.

- Well, let's see how the witch hunt goes 'cause that's all this is, is a witch hunt.

- Thank you both for a great show.

Chip- - Thank you.

- And Victor- - Thank you.

- [Chip] Appreciate it.

- And before we go, I wanna mark the passing of a celebrated local artist, John Sims, who died last week in Sarasota.

He was an instructor at The Ringling and worked as a multimedia artist and musician with exhibits around the world.

He was famous for taking the symbols of racism and the confederacy, and turning them around to advocate for freedom and liberation.

John Sims was just 54 years old.

Thank you for joining us, please send us your comments at FTW, at wedu.org, you can view this and past shows online at wedu.org or on the PBS app.

And "Florida This Week" is now available as a podcast.

From all of us here at WEDU, have a great weekend.

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