Support for Obama’s socialized health care plan keeps dropping and who does our MSM blame for this? The stupidity of Americans:
While viewers may seize upon numbers that indicate the size and scope of reforming health care — 47 million uninsured Americans or costs in the trillion-dollar range — most eyes glaze over when terms like “public option” or “bundled payments” get tossed around on the air.
“It’s not only not a cable TV-friendly story; it’s not a journalism-friendly story,” said John Harwood, chief Washington correspondent for CNBC.
Harwood, also a political writer for The New York Times, explained that reporters need to first understand the intricacies and nuances of health care policy before they can then try getting the story across to viewers and readers. Last week, Harwood said, he was “trying to get [his] head around the issue of cost control” before penning a Times column.
“It’s incredibly complex to try and explain to people,” Harwood said.
“The problem with health care is that it’s so big and so complicated that the public is never really going to understand all the moving parts of this,” NPR health policy correspondent Julie Rovner said on air Wednesday.
“So the public is really always going to be sort of amenable, if you will, to demagoguery and arguments one way or the other that don’t necessarily link to what the substance is,” Rovner continued. “We saw this during the Clinton efforts.”
Baloney. We understand this is all smoke and mirrors (PDF). Obama and company want to create a huge increase in the number of people insured by the government which increases demand and the cost associated with that demand. On top of that Obama wants to keep the price low which means quality of care will decrease, as it has in every country with socialized medicine. Look at DMV, look at the VA, look at Medicare. There are many examples for us average Americans to see everyday that tells us the government taking care of our medical needs is a recipe for disaster.
Karl at Protein Wisdom describes what we are all seeing:
The answer may be that even those Americans not steeped in the arcana of healthcare policy know enough to spot obvious chicanery. When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says that healthcare reform means a cap on your costs, but no cap on your benefits, most Americans can smell the horse manure. Most Americans know their government well enough to know it is not in the fishes and loaves business.
Accordingly when they hear that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office scores the House bill as a fiscal disaster, they tend to believe it. Indeed, even establishment outlets like the Washington Post and Newsweek now run op-eds essentially accusing Pres. Obama of misleading people on this basic point.
And the people have spoken:
Memo: No health vote before recess
Democratic leaders have apparently thrown in the towel — telling their Republican counterparts that there will be no health care vote on the House floor before the August recess starts this Friday, according a Republican memo obtained by POLITICO.The memo:
From: Cavicke, David
Sent: Tuesday, July 28, 2009 4:51 PM
To: REDACTED
Subject: ScheduleDemocratic Leadership has told Mr. Boehner’s staff that there will be no vote on Health on the Floor before recess and we will leave Friday.
We still have no confirmation of plans to resume or end the Committee Markup.David L. Cavicke
Republican Chief of Staff
Committee on Energy and Commerce
See author page