Tom Cotton on the Truth-O-Meter

The 2014 races are still a year away, but PolitiFact aims to stay on top of the campaign rhetoric.

One politician we’re keeping our eye on is U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., who’s running for Senate against Democratic incumbent Mark Pryor. The House freshman is an attorney and served in the U.S. Army in Iraq and Afghanistan. In previous races, he’s won tea party support, and he has hawkish views on foreign policy. He’s considered a rising star of the Republican Party.

Cotton recently met our Truth-O-Meter twice. Check out his complete PolitiFact file and stay tuned for more fact-checks on Pryor and Cotton as we get deeper into their campaigns in the months to come.

• The health care marketplaces have “no privacy protections,” in an MSNBC interview. False.

Cotton suggests that when consumers enter sensitive information into healthcare.gov and state marketplaces, that data can be shared within the government or accessed by hackers. After talking with cybersecurity experts, looking at the legislation and understanding the data hub, we found that neither is true.  We rated Cotton’s claim False.

• Mark Pryor voted for “special subsidies” for lawmakers and staff in Congress “so they’re protected from Obamacare.” False.

The subsidy referred to is the government continuing to share the cost of insurance premiums for employees,  as is standard practice in every establishment that offers insurance to its workers. There is nothing special about that. The only thing special about Obamacare and Congress is that the law treated Congress and its workers differently than any other group of workers. We rated Cotton’s statement False.