NY Post lends credence to Trump's lie that he “saved” insurance for people with preexisting conditions
The Trump administration is currently supporting a lawsuit to get rid of the entire Affordable Care Act, which is what actually “saved” insurance for people with preexisting conditions
Written by Bobby Lewis
Published
On January 13, President Donald Trump tweeted “I was the person who saved Pre-Existing Conditions in your Healthcare.” As law professor Steve Vladek and other experts quickly pointed out, this was a “bald-faced lie.” The truth of the matter is that the Trump administration is trying to get a federal court to declare the entire Affordable Care Act unconstitutional after the 2020 election, including the requirement for insurers to cover preexisting conditions. But the New York Post -- Trump ally Rupert Murdoch’s major U.S. tabloid -- implied that the president’s latest egregious lie is actually true.
The Post’s Emily Jacobs wrote up Trump’s false tweet in a quick article that mentioned Trump’s health care attacks but did not correct any of his false claims, instead presenting the president’s lie as simply one side of a he-said, he-said between Trump and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg. Meanwhile, in mainstream, non-Murdoch media, reporters were quick to call out Trump’s false information:
The Affordable Care Act, signed into law by President Obama, guaranteed coverage for people with pre-existing conditions. Trump’s administration backs a lawsuit to invalidate the law, effectively killing the pre-existing conditions provisions in the law. https://t.co/NqA63ZrPav
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) January 13, 2020
This is brazen lying. Democrats *got* the protections for people with pre-existing conditions, in Obamacare. Trump has tried to get bills passed that would weaken the protections, is supporting a lawsuit to overturn the whole law, has presented no plan for if the suit succeeds. pic.twitter.com/fVtHUsHJv7
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) January 13, 2020
Rather than amplify a baldfaced lie just going to reiterate the truth: Republicans, including Donald Trump, have engaged in an unrelenting campaign to rip health insurance, including protections for preexisting conditions, from tens of millions of people.
— Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) January 13, 2020
There is no possible lens through which this claim about saving pre-existing conditions could be viewed as true. https://t.co/L9QHxYcSxw
— Abby Goodnough (@abbygoodnough) January 13, 2020
This comes one day after the New York Post reported that Defense Secretary Mark Esper “backed President Trump’s claim that Iranian militia groups had targeted four US embassies for attack,” in stark contrast to mainstream media outlets which correctly noted that Esper said he saw no evidence of an imminent attack. Esper’s admission was the utter collapse of yet another Trump claim, but according to the Murdoch-owed Post, the defense secretary’s embarrassing performance that directly contradicted Trump somehow actually “backed” the president.