COVID-19 & Healthcare

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

As I said the other day, "There is some actually very good reporting on this topic, none of which
will be reported on the tee-vee by the concern troll media villagers,
nor reported in your local newspapers which rely on the AP (All
Propaganda) concern trolls for sensationalistic reporting. Horseshit
reporting is what is killing any serious policy discussion in this
country."

Paul Waldman at The American Prospect wrote about this the other day, Another Phony Obamacare Victim Story:

In the last couple of decades, a particular technique of news-story
construction has become so common that I'm sure you barely notice it as
something distinctive. It's the use of a device sometimes referred to as
the "exemplar," in which a policy issue is explained through the
profile of one individual, whose tale usually begins and ends the story.
It's ubiquitous on television news, but print reporters do it all the
time as well.

* * *

To see how misleading some of these exemplar stories can be, let's take this piece from last night's NBC Nightly News,
which uses an exemplar named Deborah Cavallaro, a self-employed realtor
from Los Angeles who buys insurance on the individual market[.]

Waldman then systematically destroys the NBC news reporter's reporting. "Unfortunately, we seem to be seeing a lot of these stories; here's an almost identical story from CBS about a 56-year-old Florida woman that goes through the same routine[.]"

Journalists have a natural inclination to cover bad news over good and
to be skeptical of the government, which is usually healthy. But if you
aren't careful it can also lead to misleading reporting. If you're going
to do a story presenting one person as a victim of the law, it might be
a good idea to make sure they are what you say they are.

Similarly, Michael Hiltzik, the excellent business reporter for the Los Angeles Times also looked into this same "exemplar," Deborah Cavallaro, by the tee-vee reporters. Another Obamacare horror story debunked (shockingly, this story did make the editorial pages of the Arizona Daily Star today Michael Hiltzik: Don’t believe the canceled insurance hype):

"Please explain to me," she told Maria Bartiromo on CNBC
Wednesday, "how my plan is a 'substandard' plan when … I'd be paying
more for the exchange plans than I am currently paying by a wide
margin."

Bartiromo didn't take her up on her request. So I will.

The bottom line is that Cavallaro's assertion that "there's nothing
affordable about the Affordable Care Act," as she put it Tuesday on NBC
Channel 4, is the product of her own misunderstandings, abetted by a
passel of uninformed and incurious news reporters. 

I talked with Cavallaro, 60, after her CNBC appearance.

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

It never ceases to amaze me how the corporate media villagers so readily internalize GOPropaganda talking points and participate in the right-wing noise machine's faux outrage of the day media narratives. Liberal media bias my ass!

The latest faux outrage of the day media narrative is that people are receiving cancellation notices for their individual health insurance plans, which means they now must shop on the health insurance exchanges for a new policy.

But, but … President Obama said “if you like your healthcare plan, you will be able to keep your healthcare plan.” Call the Wahhmbulance.

Joshua Holland at Moyers & Company has an excellent summary of the Rash of Lazy, Sensational Reporting That is Freaking People Out About Obamacare:

A rash of sensational, context-free reporting is needlessly alarming the
public about what’s happening in America’s health insurance markets as a
result of Obamacare. Making matters worse, it’s set against a backdrop
of relentless, intentional misinformation from the law’s opponents. It should come as no surprise that many Americans are anxious about a law most know little about other than what they catch on short TV news segments.

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Brian Beutler at Salon explains how Conservatives — with no concern for making healthcare better — have made arguing about Obamacare a waste of time:

As always, though, the point of the complaints isn’t to address and
rectify problems, but rather to deploy them as subterfuge to wreck the
entire reform edifice.

* * *

Conservatives only care about these problems insofar as they can be
used to trash or undermine the law in its entirety. That’s why they
never, ever mention any of the millions of people who will or are
already benefiting from the law. If they did, they’d have to entertain
solutions to these problems that don’t essentially kick a tent pole out
from underneath the system.

The disruption we’re seeing in the
individual insurance market is mostly by design. And it’s mostly a good
thing. Until October, the individual market existed to sell insurance to
people who needed it least. Rates were low for healthy people precisely
because their old, sick neighbors were priced or locked out of the
system. They were also low because many of the policies on the market
didn’t actually fulfill the function of insurance, which is to hedge
against financial catastrophe.

Obamacare eliminates each of these
enormous flaws by 1) regulating insurance so that it covers lots of
stuff and genuinely protects people from medical bankruptcy, 2) making
plans available and affordable to the ill and elderly by banning price
discrimination against sick people, and only allowing insurers to charge
the elderly three times as much as the young for equivalent coverage,
3) providing subsidies to the poor and middle class to make coverage
affordable.

* * *

[Conservatives'] tremendous outpouring of grief for young, middle-class people now comes couched in the false premise that the only available solution is
complete repeal. You could counter that by any moral standard the system
the Affordable Care Act creates is preferable to the one we had before[.]