Earlier today, I speculated about the nature of the coverage in the mainstream media once the new GOP healthcare law passed the House. A few weeks ago when the vote was put off, the media treated that development as something akin to Armageddon for president Trump's administration. Now that the law has passed the House, one would think that the opposite coverage would appear.
Of course, it should come as no surprise that there is precious little coverage about the great success that the GOP and President Trump just managed to pull off. Certain news outlets (like Yahoo News) don't even mention this as a success. They focus on what they claim to be the major flaws in the legislation which will hurt Americans. Other media like NBC News focus on what the new law contains and on why it is likely a death sentence for thousands of people. I'm not making that up. NBC News actually claims that the new law will leave thousands to die. Of course, if you read the article, you find that NBC found a doctor who is worried that the new law might lead to some people losing coverage. This sounds alarming, but if you read carefully, you find that the fears expressed by NBC's source have no basis in fact. These fears don't even pertain to the final legislation just passed. A third group of media sites cover the event by listing the differences between Obamacare and the new plan. These would be helpful if they were complete, but all we get is biased coverage instead. For example, one article noted that when the CBO scored the old version of the GOP plan it found that up to 24 million people would drop coverage over a decade. The article was silent on the other CBO finding, namely that people with insurance would see their premiums decline by roughly $1500 per year on average. Just the bad but not the good is reported.
To be fair, one mainstream media outlet did talk about the President's success in getting the bill passed in the House. CBS had smirking reporters who talked about the supposed success in getting the bill passed; while discussing this success, however, the reporters snickered at the ridiculous idea of a Trump success.
The media never fails to come through in a pinch. I thought the coverage would be biased and that's what we got from the media.
Of course, it should come as no surprise that there is precious little coverage about the great success that the GOP and President Trump just managed to pull off. Certain news outlets (like Yahoo News) don't even mention this as a success. They focus on what they claim to be the major flaws in the legislation which will hurt Americans. Other media like NBC News focus on what the new law contains and on why it is likely a death sentence for thousands of people. I'm not making that up. NBC News actually claims that the new law will leave thousands to die. Of course, if you read the article, you find that NBC found a doctor who is worried that the new law might lead to some people losing coverage. This sounds alarming, but if you read carefully, you find that the fears expressed by NBC's source have no basis in fact. These fears don't even pertain to the final legislation just passed. A third group of media sites cover the event by listing the differences between Obamacare and the new plan. These would be helpful if they were complete, but all we get is biased coverage instead. For example, one article noted that when the CBO scored the old version of the GOP plan it found that up to 24 million people would drop coverage over a decade. The article was silent on the other CBO finding, namely that people with insurance would see their premiums decline by roughly $1500 per year on average. Just the bad but not the good is reported.
To be fair, one mainstream media outlet did talk about the President's success in getting the bill passed in the House. CBS had smirking reporters who talked about the supposed success in getting the bill passed; while discussing this success, however, the reporters snickered at the ridiculous idea of a Trump success.
The media never fails to come through in a pinch. I thought the coverage would be biased and that's what we got from the media.
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