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TomCADem

(17,378 posts)
Sun Jun 29, 2014, 10:06 PM Jun 2014

Healthcare debate lacks factual arguments against Obamacare

Nice article calling out how the RW continues to ignore facts and how the media continues to help perpetuate RW myths. The thing is that this can pretty much be applied to pretty much any substantive policy discussion.

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-20140629-column.html#page=1

Healthcare reporters and bloggers I queried in an informal poll confirmed that the ACA elicits unusual fervor among their readers. One who writes for a progressive website says that "Obamacare is only in second place when it comes to hate tweets. No. 1 is Benghazi."

What accounts for the pungent rancor? Here's a rundown:

•The Fox News effect. That's shorthand for the combined impact of the Republican assault on Obamacare and relentlessly negative coverage from the right-wing news media. "As divided as the GOP is, one thing they can agree on is that they hate the ACA," says Timothy S. Jost, an expert on healthcare law at Virginia's Washington and Lee University. "That's an important organizing principle for them."

The campaign involves ceaseless repetition of the mantra that Obamacare is bad, accompanied by almost no explanation why. It's a canny approach, because polls have shown consistently that Americans favor the individual elements of the ACA by a wide margin — the ban on exclusions for preexisting conditions, the closing of the Medicare prescription drug "doughnut hole," tax credits for small businesses to give their workers coverage, and expanding Medicaid all are favored by 65% or more. But "Obamacare," undefined, gets low marks.
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