Obamacare architect to Bill O’Reilly: “You’re just sowing fear with no grounds”

Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, Rahm's brother and a former Obama adviser, is not afraid to take on Fox News' marquee yakker

ELIAS ISQUITH

Ezekiel Emanuel is a very accomplished medical expert, academic and public policy adviser. He also happens to be the sibling of the infamously combative mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel. He’s a former right-wing boogeyman, too.

Put those three things together and it’s hardly a surprise to discover that, during a Tuesday appearance on Bill O’Reilly’s Fox News show, Emanuel had no trouble at all when it came to smacking down the right-wing pundit’s many uninformed, baseless and ominous predictions about the consequences of a policy Emanuel himself helped create — Obamacare.

While Emanuel initially seemed happy enough to debate the merits of healthcare reform with O’Reilly — the two go back-and-forth on whether doctors will accept patients who got their healthcare insurance via Obamacare’s marketplace exchanges, as well as whether healthcare clinics are going to become increasingly common (which O’Reilly thinks is bad because, apparently, nurse practitioners aren’t real medical experts) — as the segment wore on, his frustration with O’Reilly’s ignorance and scaremongering gradually increased.

Eventually, the former White House adviser had had enough, telling O’Reilly, point blank, that he was “sowing fear with no grounds.” Emanuel pointed out that most of the right’s predictions of Obamacare failures haven’t panned out, and yet Fox News continues to push the same lines, despite the lack of evidence. “You’re just sowing fear with no factual basis,” Emanuel told O’Reilly.

“You know me,” O’Reilly responded, sarcastically, “I’m afraid of everything.”

http://www.salon.com/2014/03/05/obamacare_architect_to_bill_o%E2%80%99reilly_%E2%80%9Cyou%E2%80%99re_just_sowing_fear_with_no_grounds%E2%80%9D/