Media fail at the Arizona Daily Star

Posted by AzblueMeanie:

Our sad small town newspaper, the Arizona Daily Star, fails us once again. The newspaper that cannot bring itself to publish a single fact check article on the "$500 billion cut to Medicare" lie that will not die — and you really should ask the editors why they will not do what the Tucson Weekly does — has yet another article by Brady McCombs in what appears to be an attempt at "gotcha" reporting, complete with a reference to a Breitbart.com video provided by the GOP.

McCombs' big reveal? Ron Barber supports reforming our broken healthcare system. Video proves Barber pushed for Obama health law, GOP says. Ooohhh, scary!

Here's a bit of history for you. President Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican, was the first to propose universal healthcare as part of his "new nationalism" in the Square Deal. His distant cousin, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, provided a safety net for the nation’s elderly, sick and disabled as part of the Social Security Act of 1935 in the New Deal. President Harry Truman made universal health care coverage part of the Democratic Party’s Platform in the Fair Deal. This goal was partially realized by the creation of the Medicare and Medicaid systems in 1965 under President Lyndon Johnson in the Great Society. And here's a schocker for you: President Richard Nixon expanded Medicare and Medicaid and worked with Sen. Edward Kennedy to propose universal healthcare coverage under the Nixon-Kennedy Healthcare plan of 1974. President Bill Clinton proposed national healthcare reform. And even Republican George W. Bush supported Medicare Part D and Medicare Advantage programs. See, U.S. Presidents And Health Care Reform: The History Of Public Health Politics In America.

In short, every Democrat who has run for office since FDR's New Deal has supported healthcare reform. It's been in the Democratic Party’s Platform since Harry Truman. This would only be a story if Ron Barber was opposed to healthcare reform.

McCombs accurately reports Ron Barber's response,"Barber has said he wasn't in office to vote on the law, and that his job as former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' district director did not include drafting bills. He has also said the law was 'far from perfect,' and proposed keeping good aspects while revising bad aspects." But McCombs follows this up with commentary: "But his statements to a pro-health-care-reform rally at about the time the bill was introduced in Congress in 2009 leave no doubt where he stood on passage of a health-care bill, which was ultimately approved the following March after numerous modifications." See above.

McCombs fixates on the date legislation was introduced and the date of the video, as if this is any way relevant. I think I can safely assert that McCombs has never read the original bills introduced or the hundreds of amendments that were adopted in the "sausage making" process of legislation that produced the final result of the ACA. His reporting leaves the impression that the final bill is the same as what was originally introduced, even though he previously acknowledged "numerous modifications."

Maybe he has forgotten the pitched battles over competing bills and the disappointment of many Democrats in failing to make the ACA a single-payer system. We settled for what was "doable" in the face of Tea-Publican obstruction, a private insurance company subsidy based upon RomneyCare from Massachusetts (the insurance mandate was long a Republican plan in Congress). The final result really ought to be called "ObamneyCare" for accuracy.

Finally, our Mr. McCombs again veers into commentary towards the end, "The emergence of the video is an ironic turnaround for the Barber campaign, which has, for more than a month, hammered Kelly with videos of remarks made during his failed congressional race two years ago about wanting to privatize and phase out Social Security and Medicare." The fact that there is a video of a Democrat speaking in favor of healthcare reforms is "ironic"? No, it would only be ironic if Barber had said he was bitterly opposed to healthcare reform and would vote against any bill. The mere existence of a video is not "ironic."