Good Monday Morning, Fellow Seekers.

With the GOP primary now little more than three weeks way, Republican governor candidate Paul Mango is back on the air with a new spot attacking rival Scott Wagner, even as he tries to set the record straight on his stance on Obamacare.

"How dishonest is Scott Wagner?" Mango asks in the new commercial. "I'll show you. A year ago, [April 2017] I posted his video highlighting my strong opposition to Obamacare."

The screen then cuts to an image from that 2017 video, showing of Mango saying, "And believe me, Obamacare is never the answer."

But in the year since that video debuted, Mango's position on President Barack Obama's signature piece of social welfare legislation has been a subject of vigorous dispute.

And Wagner, a York County state senator, has wasted little expense or effort to hammer Mango on it in a series of campaign advertisements that take their own liberties with the truth.

First, the Mango ad:

Everything You Need Scott Wagner has been trying to deceive voters about my position on Obamacare. I have been a loud and consistent opponent of Obamacare. This ad shows you all the evidence. Scott Wagner knew the truth but tried to deceive you anyhow. And that tells you everything you need to know about Scott Wagner’s character. #ReadyToServe #RestoreTheDream #Mango2018 #PAGov Posted by Paul Mango on Friday, April 20, 2018

Now the analysis:

As we reported on March 20, Mango, a former healthcare consultant for giants McKinsey & Co., has both written and spoken at least semi-favorably about the need for an individual mandate and how the law could help the economics of the hospital industry.

For instance, Mango told The Economist in 2009 that:

"The government gives hospitals some money to compensate them for this, but the [American Hospital Association] says it does not cover the full cost, which it put at $34 billion in 2007 (around 5 percent of hospitals' annual revenues), up from $3.9 billion in 1980. Paul Mango of McKinsey, a consultancy, estimates that the hospitals recover only 10-12 percent of this cost. But he says the problem would be greatly reduced under a system of universal health-insurance which included subsidies for the indigent, as the proposed health reforms envisage."

And in a 2007 "McKinsey Quarterly" report obtained by PennLive, Mango, and colleagues Diana Farrell and Nicolaus P. Henke, suggested that mandates could be the solution to solving bad behavior:

"If efforts to build awareness or to offer incentives have failed--or when the costs of external factors are not fully borne by their creators (such as restaurants that permit customers to smoke, thus exposing other customers to the fumes)--the more direct approach of mandates may be necessary to reinforce desirable behavior or prohibit bad practice," they wrote.

Just for the good of the order, Mango told the website ZocDoc that "government ... should be more active in promoting healthy behaviors. They should take 20 percent of the health care budget out of cure and treatment and put it into prevention. I think we're spending less than 2 percent right now. I'd have bike trails, exercise programs, and mandatory nutritional programs. Medical risk is determined almost entirely today by individual behavior, so reform has to get at changing behavior."

Now back to the ad:

In it, Mango correctly points out that, on his official campaign website, he argued that "Obamacare has been a disaster for Pennsylvania."

That's not entirely true. While premiums have risen, the ranks of the uninsured in Pennsyvlania have been thinned.

From Ballotpedia:

In a February 2017, in a letter to House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf, who's up for re-election this fall, argued that a repeal could have "devastating impacts" in the Keystone State.

On March 15, Mango told a Berks County Tea Party group that, "You could ask a thousand people in the healthcare industry and I bet you $1,000 that not one of them would say I ever advocated for Obamacare. I spent seven years fighting against Obamacare."

But even that proclamation is leavened by his admission, caught on tape by a tracker for the progressive group American Bridge, that the Economist has asked him "a very simple question about whether this would improve hospital economics. The unsanitized answer is 'Yes.'"

But, he added, "It has nothing to do with my position on Obamacare."

And maybe, if he'd left it there, he would have been all right.

But in the very next frame, Mango knocks the legs out from underneath his own argument.

"Newspapers confirmed that I not only opposed Obamacare, I called for repealing Obamacare," says.

The ad cuts to an image -- purportedly from that March 20 PennLive column:



Whoops ... looks like Mango forgot a little something.

Oh say ... the rest of the headline:

Yes, it's true that, in the course of that column, Mango's spokesman, Matthew E. Beynon, confirmed his candidate's opposition to the Affordable Care Act, saying that, "Paul has always been opposed to Obamacare and not only supported Republican governors in fighting it, but briefed the entire Republican Senate caucus in Washington about its failures. As one of the leading experts on hospital economics in the country, Paul rigorously analyzed the impact of Obamacare on all health care sector participants."

But Mango's contention that he supports repealing Obamacare is also a matter of dispute.

The citation comes from a May 19, 2017 story from the Times-Tribune of Scranton:

"Mango, whose Harvard Business School master's degree and expertise at McKinsey was in health care, declined to comment on the U.S. House Republicans' plan to repeal and replace President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act. He said he would wait until the Senate comes up with its version, but said he favors repealing Obamacare because it has increased health insurance premiums and cost people coverage.

"State Democratic Party spokesman Beth Melena ripped Mango for "dodging" on the Republican plan, which she said would cost millions of Pennsylvanians to lose health care and increase rates on seniors and the five million Pennsylvanians with a pre-existing condition."

"Wagner knows all this," Mango continues, "yet ran this ad trying to deceive you anyhow."

Here's the image from that ad:

"That tells you everything you need to know about Scott Wagner," he concludes.

And he's half-right, it's a stretch to call Mango a "leading advocate," for Obamacare.

But the advertiseemnt also speaks volumes about Mango's own obfuscation of his position on Obamacare to Republican primary voters.

Conclusion:

Yes, it's true that Mango has spoken out publicly against the Affordable Care Act.

And, yes, it's also true that he has called for its repeal. But it is also undeniably true that, in his former profession, he spoke and wrote favorably about the law's effects on the economics of the hospital industry and how it could it reduce the ranks of the uninsured.

But his credibility is undercut by Mango's blatant falsification and distortion of the PennLive headline and his use of The Times-Tribune story, which makes clear that he had not taken a position on national efforts to repeal the healthcare law.

Final Grade: D

The rest of the day's news starts now.

A new Muhlenberg College poll finds Democrats on solid ground as the mid-terms approach. Their appeal on the generic ballot is one of the main points in this WHYY-FM story.

Despite that ... there's nothing to see here, Republican leaders told The Post-Gazette.

We've obtained exclusive leaked video of that interview:

So remember that proposal to impeach Pennsylvania Supreme Court justices? That's met with about as much success as you'd expect, The Associated Press reports.

WolfWatch.

Gov. Tom Wolf and State Police officials will discuss Pa's background checks system during a 10:30 a.m. event in the Governor's Reception Room. Tonight at 5:30 p.m., Wolf attends the annual Gridiron Dinner put on by Capitol reporters. That's at the Harrisburg Hilton on Market Square.

What Goes On.

The House and Senate both convene at 1 p.m. today. Pa. Victims Advocate Jennifer Storm is the featured speaker at this month's Pennsylvania Press Club luncheon at the Hilton, which gets underway at noon.

What Goes On (Nakedly Political Edition).

Auditor General Eugene DePasquale holds an 11:30 a.m. luncheon at the Hilton. Admission runs $500 to $2,500. And state Sen. Tom McGarrigle holds a 5:30 p.m. reception at Level 2 on Second Street. Admission there runs $250 to $2,500.

You Say It's Your Birthday Dept.

Best wishes go out this morning to Natasha Lindstrom, of The Tribune-Review. Belated best wishes go out to Ron Southwick of The Reading Eagle, who celebrated on Sunday. Congratulations all around.

And now you're up to date.