Damage control: Fox News reacts to latest CBO estimate
March 18, 2010 11:30 am ET by Ben Dimiero
For the past few days, our political media has been waiting with bated breath for the latest CBO score of the health care bill (or, as Glenn Beck calls it, "a bloodstream disease" that "will be incurable.")
Well, the numbers finally came in this morning, and the news is good for Democrats and those who support health care reform. Here's Ezra Klein reporting the estimate:
According to a Democratic source, CBO has finished its work and will release the official preliminary score later today. But here are the basic numbers: The bill will cost $940 billion over the first 10 years and reduce the deficit by $130 billion during that period. In the second 10 years -- so, 2020 to 2029 -- it will reduce the deficit by $1.2 trillion. The legislation will cover 32 million Americans, or 95 percent of the legal population.
To put this in context, that's more deficit reduction than either the House or Senate bill, and more coverage than the Senate bill.
Uh-oh -- that's not going to go over well with Fox News. So, how did they cover it?
In breaking the news of the score, Bill Hemmer (and the Fox chyron) stressed the $940 billion "cost" of the bill over the first ten years. He vaguely mentioned the deficit reductions by saying that the CBO "talks about reducing the deficit over a period of ten years, and compares that to reducing the deficit over a period of twenty years."
Hemmer was careful not to mention specific numbers, likely due to fear of giving Fox viewers accurate information that might derail a lot of the Fox fearmongering about reform. Unfortunately for Hemmer, his guest Juan Williams then read the numbers on air. Hemmer's reaction? Asking Williams if he "believe[s]" that. No, really:
The damage control continued later in the hour, when Hemmer discussed Democrats' reaction to the bill. He introduced a statement by Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC), who described the Democrats as "giddy" over the estimated deficit reductions. Hemmer's reaction to this uncomfortable reality belongs in the Fox News Hall of Fame:
So, Rep. Clyburn discusses how the Democrats are giddy over the deficit reductions in the bill, which Hemmer ignores to assert they are happy about the $940 billion "price tag." That's not what he was referencing, Bill!
As an aside, it should be noted how blatantly dishonest Fox's focus on the "cost" of the bill is. The bill could "cost" $5 billion dollars or "cost" $5 trillion dollars - the net impact on the deficit is a more accurate assessment.
How many ways can Fox obscure the deficit reductions in the bill in order to stress the $940 billion "cost"? This should be fun to watch over the course of the day...
The Fox motto should be "We decide what to report, so you don't have to decide."
They've "confirmed" details contained in a public document that is easily accessible online.
Hey, this journalism stuff is easier than I thought. Look, I just "confirmed" I have brown eyes!
The details were know right now weren't released by the CBO - they were released by Democratic and Republican leaders in Congress ahead of the official release by the CBO.
$700 billion for TARP, and it's all the fault of the Democrats.
$940 billion to provide health care to our citizens... IT'S ARMAGEDDON!!
and HCR is $940Billion over 10 years, or about $94 Billion a year... About the cost of a couple of jet fighters....
But I also think your comment is in poor taste.
But overall we Dem's shouldn't cooperate with the efforts of FoxNews.
It may not get through many of the thick skulls in the audience, but the sharp contrast between what he says and what Fox claims he means ought to be causing a lot of cognitive dissonance headaches over there,-
It's something no honest and legitimate news organization would do - that's why FoxNews does it, because they aren't legit and honest.
They won't even miss a beat. They are professional liars, after all.
"fare n balunct"
"wee repurt, yuo deside"
Immigration is on hold until health care passes and that will change all the numbers.
There isn't even a public option in the bills.
This bill is a first step towards changing health care in this country, and a step in the right direction.
It's a step in the European direction, and looking at how Europe is doing I don't see anything right about it.
We got ya.
Please don't feed this troll anymore.
All he wants is negative attention. He has no desire to participate in any real debate.
In America, many school districts rely on property taxes, yielding inequities between richer and poorer areas, and which schools do you think are doing better and which ones are under-performing? Furthermore, the fact that many schools in the US are underfunded and have inadequate facilities (especially in the Red South, i.e. South Carolina) tend to be masked by overall numbers, rich districts spending lavishly on their schools.
And while it is true that America ranks among the highest spenders on education, public spending is only average compared to other countries. A lot of the money spent on education in the US goes to private schools. (Who, generally, do you think, get to go to Harvard?)
Also, almost all the major industrialized countries have strict national education standards. The money they spend goes across the board in an even manner and everyone is basically learning the same things. America's standards, as shown recently by the debacle in Texas, are controlled by local and state boards of education who are often populated with (how can I put this kindly) people who place politics and religion above academic excellence.
So, I don't think this conservative meme about spending actually holds up when you are talking about education. As for European health care, you might have a point.
Europeans, despite the fact that they all have robust public health care systems, spend a lot less overall than Americans who have to deal with the strictly private system (i.e., those not on Medicare). And they also tend to get better health outcomes despite the fact that they are spending less. But I suppose that's just the price of freedom, right?
"You can't just put dollars in one column and test scores in another column," Jennings said. "Life is more complicated than that."
The United States spent 7 percent of its gross domestic product - the country's total output of goods and services - on education in 2000, the second-highest total among the countries. Within that total, the U.S. share of public spending on education was only average compared with the other countries, but the U.S. private investment in schools was high.
Here's a link to a 2003 story that I meant to include in my post that contained the quotes at the bottom of my post.
Better outcomes? How so?
Just take a walk down the corridors of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN and tell me what you see. Lets just say it's an "international" experience. I guess their "outcomes" were not living up to their expectations.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/19/health.care.poll/index.html
Does anyone know if the Cadillac plan Tax is still in? Because if it is them a lot more than the top2% are going to pay more!