The Star must really hate Health Care Reform

by David Safier

While tracking misleading headlines written by the Star's Creative Headline Writers, I've found more bad headlines about health care reform than any other topic. The publisher and editors of the Star must really hate that bill.

The latest is in today's paper. Before I reveal the Star-created headline for the AP's fact check article about Medicare and health care reform, here's the headline in the vast majority of papers:

FACT CHECK: Can overhaul law save Medicare?

How vast is "the vast majority of papers"? In the first 3 pages of my Google search, 25 out of 30 entries used that headline.

Compare that to the Star headline for the identical article:

Health-overhaul claim on Medicare cuts, new coverage is questionable

No one else used a headline even vaguely similar to the Star's. And in fact, the fact checking in the article says the "claim" that health care reform won't harm Medicare are substantially true, meaning the Star's use of "questionable" is highly questionable.

My all-time favorite Star anti-health care headline is this one from April 1:

Why seniors say Obamacare is bad medicine for them

Since then, I've kept my eye open to see if any non-conservative news source has used "Obamacare" as a descriptor for health care reform. I haven't found it once. But the term crops up regularliy on right wing websites. And "Obamacare is Bad Medicine" was a regular slogan on signs at anti-health care rallies.

When it comes to reporting on health care reform, the Star's Headline Style Book guideline is, Mislead and Deceive.