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Article snippet: WASHINGTON — In a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times on Wednesday, President Trump made a number of misleading and false claims, including statements on health insurance, the biography of his deputy attorney general and French history. Here’s an assessment. “You’re 21 years old, you start working and you’re paying $12 a year for insurance, and by the time you’re 70, you get a nice plan,” Mr. Trump said. “Here’s something where you walk up and say, ‘I want my insurance.’” Mr. Trump’s description aligns with life insurance or Social Security more accurately than health insurance. A 21-year-old who took out a whole life insurance policy, for example, would pay premiums until death, and the amount accumulated over the decades would be paid out to beneficiaries. A 21-year-old who purchases a health insurance policy is not paying premiums to save up for care 50 years down the line. Rather, the 21-year-old’s premiums help cover the costs of an older person or someone with more expensive medical needs. Mr. Trump is right that in most situations, a 21-year-old is healthier than a 70-year-old and needs less medical care. But a 21-year-old with a pre-existing condition could have been denied coverage or charged much more before the Affordable Care Act’s passage. Motoko Rich, The Times’s Tokyo bureau chief, refuted Mr. Trump’s claim. Though Akie Abe, the wife of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, speaks Japanese in many public international appearances, she delivered a 1... Link to the full article to read more