Fox Nation smears Sawyer, saying she's proud of ABC "Infomercial"
SUMMARY: A Fox Nation headline declared, "Diane Sawyer 'proud' of Obama Health Care Infomercial." But in a video clip the Fox Nation included, Sawyer stated, "It is not an infomercial. ABC News does not do that."
In a June 23 headline, the Fox Nation declared, "Diane Sawyer 'proud' of Obama Health Care Infomercial." But in the video clip from the June 21 edition of CNN's Reliable Sources the Fox Nation included along with the headline, Sawyer stated, "It is not an infomercial. ABC News does not do that," adding that "people ... are going to be able to ask questions from every single vantage point. And they are going to challenge the president, many of them."
ABC News senior vice president Kerry Smith has similarly stated that the ABC special will give "voice to questions and criticisms" of President Obama's health care plan and that "ABC News is looking for the most thoughtful and diverse voices on this issue," as Media Matters for America has noted.
From the June 21 edition of CNN's Reliable Sources:
HOWARD KURTZ (host): As you know, the Republican national chairman Michael Steele has said that ABC is promoting ObamaCare. And Fox's Sean Hannity took a shot at this, noting ABC being owned by parent company Disney. Let's play a little bit of Hannity. Let me just play the bite.
SEAN HANNITY (Fox News host) [video clip]: President Obama's love affair with the mainstream media continues. But as we learn more about next week's Mickey Mouse-sponsored infomercial, one thing is becoming clear, and that is our headline this Wednesday night, journalism in America is dead.
KURTZ: I'm sure you would like to respond to that.
SAWYER: Oh, Sean. Again, you know, ABC -- I'm so proud of ABC. And I hope that there is some recognition for the fact that this network is trying to tackle a serious issue in a serious way, and we are doing something that we would love to see a lot more air time dedicated to.
What is more important than a dialogue about health care? It is not an infomercial. ABC News does not do that. We will be there, and these people in this room are going to be able to ask questions from every single vantage point. And they are going to challenge the president, many of them.
And, as I said, this is not a Republican or a Democratic issue. It is an American issue. And I don't think Republicans or Democrats can argue that only people on Capitol Hill should be addressing this issue. We should have a great debate about these issues with people on the front lines as well.
I made this same point the other day. Obama is America's President. He's not the Democrat's President. He was their candidate, but now he is America's President, and so his initiatives should be discussed. This show does not show bias towards the Democrats. It shows deference to and interest in the American President's latest, greatest initiative.
Also, why is he focused on "INSURANCE"? Because that's where the money is. Insurance merely grow government and yields no direct benefit to a person who cannot get health care. If he as interested in improving the lives of the people who cannot get health care, why doesn't he talk about improving health care rather than expanding the middleman to all patient/doctor transactions -- Insurance.
Exactly what problem is he trying to solve? Is it the 50 million (the number grows by the week) uninsured? If that, then he should at least use a credible number -- 10 millions simply don't buy insurance but they could; 12 million are eligible for Medicare/Medicaid but haven't signed up; 8 million are illegal aliens. That shrinks the problem down
to 16 million "uninsured". Why not focus on giving those people health care rather than setting up a huge bureaucracy for insurance that no one wants [do you like insurance forms and judgements about what is covered?].
As for health insurance, the facts don't lie, we need to do something about it, its killing business in America, not to mention people. Our healthcare quality is good, thats never been the issue, its always been about availabilty. and right now, even if your insured, there are some things you don't get much freedom of choice on, doctors are in and out of the network, some insurers get dropped because they don't pay some things, or don't pay enough on them..and I"m talking about being dropped by doctors.
I want healthcare to be available to all, if someone gets hurt, or becomes sick, I want them to be able to walk into any emergency room in the country, and get care, without having to worry about whether its covered. I also think we can tie tort reform to this, if we have governmental paid healthcare (we are the government you know) then we can cap malpractice. Thus bring costs back into line again. We spend 2.5 times what other countries do on healthcare, and we really dn't have much to show for it. Great care, but not in great quantity, and not for everybody.
Actually, describing the report ABC News was going to do as an infomercial is denigrating to the event, and suggests that his agenda won't be discussed, but instead will be promoted.
Well, I would think that Sean would be an expert about journalism being dead in America, and probably an expert in Mickey Mouse, too.
I am not sure I understand your comment but; I think I was reaching for the simale(sp) that Sean's style is kind of "Mickey Mouse".
With all apologies to Mickey.
Fox blew their reporting of this, and they weren't fair and balanced. Wesley and RightON weren't fair and balanced either.
1. The federal government is notorious for underestimating the costs of proposed programs. Given that, I think a fair assessment of the CBO's preliminary cost estimate of $1 trillion over the next 10 years would be that the program could easily be $2 trillion. Spending $2 trillion to insure an additional 16 million people works out to over $1,000 a month for the premiums. Why should the American public be saddled with this cost when private insurance is available for at least half that amount?
2. As a follow up...You've requested of the policy wonks to come up with a proposal that costs no more than $1 trillion over the next 10 years. You've also stated that you have identified cost savings to offset the $ 1 trillion.
Since you have stated that health care is the biggest crisis to our economy, how can we be sure that you will live up to the pledge of increasing health care without increasing costs to the American public? Can we hold you accountable...like you have held the senior management of private industry accountable for their failings and disastrous effects on the economy?
You see, to them health care is above questioning and those of us that question costs and demand accountability just don't care about sick people.
I disagree with you that health care is not above questioning. How we get there is another matter, but I think that everyone in this country should have some form of healthcare. It makes us a better, and stronger country I believe.
Question the costs, of course. And of course, demand accountability. No problems with that. Some conservatives are using scare tactics though, and misinformation to make people think that the government is going to be rationing health care. Those are the idiots I have problems with.
This is a major issue that demands a lot of questions be asked, albeit in good faith, but questions nonetheless. The amount of money alone is staggering, not to mention the government's track record of mismanagement and bureacratic mountainous administrative red tape and expenditures, it is perfectly within every citizen's right to question, and question some more. And those who are making policy decision are obligated to answer honestly.
sure, sometimes thing cost more money than what was planned. thats a fact of life everywhere. ever had a contractor work on your house? so it's rather unfair to say this is something that happens in government. this is a common issue for the private sector as well. look at banks and credit cards. they give you a loan for x amount of dollars for y amount of interest and when they need more money they change the terms so it ends up costing you more. maybe the government learned it's spending lessons from the private sector.
Wow...talk about a slippery slop fallacy. Wanting the govt. to provide healthcare--either as a single payer or through a public option--does not translate into wanting them to "run it all".
Do you even realize how much larger the private sector is compared to the public sector? Your overreaction is unfounded.
If health insurance had gotten cheaper and better, like computers and tv's, we wouldn't be having this conversation. But instead, it's gotten more expensive and worse.
You can sing the praises of private enterprise and trash government all you want, but at least Medicare doesn't cancel you if you actually get sick.
Tang, Teflon and Velcro. There's 3 government created products to your two private sector. You want Private sector look at Blackwater. Yeah let's go that way.
Gee, as it turns out plasma TV is pretty much a marketplace failure, even though they are highly regarded for visual quality.
That certainly sounds like one of the "thought experiments" you typically perform concerning government matters. If the government was making plasma televisions (not that the sets are even made in the U.S.), would you peg that as a government failure?
plasma set makers exiting
You may need to better research your talking points before you conduct further thought experiments.
Thanks for helping.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Health-Insurance-Bankruptcy---A-Common-Dilemma&id=1085936]
When the government takes over, the government cannot declare bankrupcy. They will pay what these 75% of INSURED bankruptcy claimants cannot. It will cost Americans a LOT more. They will also pay for the other 25% that have no insurance.
The insurance companies are going to like this. The Government will see that and see the insurance companies are making even more money and then the government will want some money too. So the government will figure out how to drive the insurance companies out of business. Since they are the government they don't have to obey any marketing rules or anti-trust rules or anything else. They can just pass a law saying you must use government "single payer" insurance.
The future looks real bright with the government involved in health care.
Sorry for the sarcasm, but "government managed health care" is an oxymoron.
will be supporting each benificiary's medical needs AND your social security needs with 1 or 2 decades. It's financially unsustainable as President Obama has stated.
So that was a theoretical electoral whoopin' the Republican Party just had handed to them? Please, kid. You're embarrassing yourself.
We are. Way to try and further seperate people from their government, loser.
And please, if competition is your concern then why do you fear the private sector competing with the government to provide the best service possible? If the private sector is all that, they can compete and win.
Typical cowardly right wing blowhard talking points is all you have, chump.
Private companies cannot compete with the government because the government can regulate them into extinction. The government makes offers private industry cannot refuse. This is true for the Federal government only, though.
We know we need to do something, even conservatives admit this, but, so far, the only people with a plan that doesn't give insurance companies the farm is hr676 and S706, those two bills are probably the best for healthcare, but aren't even mentioned in the mass media. Instead, we get this malarky of we'll give you a grant, or a loan, or a subsidy. Thats just more red tape. Lets eliminate the tape, make it simpler. One Payer! Easy, far more efficient for all involved, gets rid of malpractice except in the most aggregious cases, so, that gets both insurance companies, and lawyers out of the mix, standardizes test procedures, lowers costs, and should increase both life expectancy, and child birth rates. We are 39th in the world in healthcare, and all those countries that people point to saying you don't get care, are far above us...that should say something to everyone. for profit medicine doesn't work. Its far to expensive, and the insurance companies decide what you can and cannot do, who you can see, etc. That to me is healthcare without choices..Universal Healthcare would open more choices, and save a ton of money. Think about it..but not from the standpoint that this is that slippery slope. Social democracy is the next adaptation of man so that he can survive himself.
I do think that health care should be debated (responding to RO above), but that in the end, health care should be made available for all. How we get there is the debate part I think.
Ask questions for certain, the money involved is large scale, and we should be asking said questions about how are we going to pay for this.
I think it's sort of disingenuous to suggest that the government mis-manages everything. It doesn't, and in some cases, such as medicare, it does very well in managing the program.
Our Federal government is good at promising things and creating law based on those promises. Medicare and Social Security are two examples. What they fail at, is managing things. They fail because the congress tinkers with these things and creates loophole and carve outs for their favorite contributors. The whole process is political. Worse, once federal laws are created, the lobbyists rise up and start becoming active. This helps create more fiddling with the controls.
The history of the Social Security program is witness to what the future of Federal Health Care will become. Is there any reason to think otherwise?
Well said...my point exactly concerning health care.
mmfa quoted Diane Sawyer stating that we were promised that Medicare would cost $12.5 billion over the first 25 years...when in fact the cost was over $100 billion...over 8 times the promised cost. And, it spanned several administrations and congresses.
This is not a partisan issue...the government is out of control on spending.
Their promises are always big and grand...their delivery on the promises absymal...and as certain as death they will spend many times more than promised.
Right on cue.
Let me ask you then, why would you put a price tag on the security of our country in fighting foreign wars? See what ridiculous questions those are?
-If wars are necessary, there should be no price tag.
I bet with universal health care, costs would go down due to preventative care, less use of emergency rooms for regular care, and the reduction of bankrupcies.
Health care is not above questioning the costs. But all you're doing is whining about how unaccountable and inefficient and bumbling the government is.
I bet with universal health care, costs would go down due to preventative care, less use of emergency rooms for regular care, and the reduction of bankrupcies.
Health care is not above questioning the costs. But all you're doing is whining about how unaccountable and inefficient and bumbling the government is.
You say the right worries about cost, but Barry is trumpeting his $1 TRILLION health care cost over ten years, but the war funding hasn't reached that number yet. Your strawman doesn't hold up.
Barry's health care cost vs war funding: Factcheck.org
And save your criticisms of Obama's plan until you guys have a coherent healthcare plan to contrast and compare to the president's plan.
phony.
Amtrak - no profits
USPS - continuing losses even though they have a monopoly
Immigration -- the border.
At V.A. Hospital, a Rogue Cancer Unit 2009-06-20
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/21/health/21radiation.html?th&emc=th
Oregon health care refuses cancer treatement, but offers suicide 2008-08-01
http://www.ccgaction.com/index.php?q=life/pas/BarbaraWagner
NRA
AAA [both Roosevelt pgms]
War on Poverty
Smooth Hawley Tarrif
Prohibition
Social Security [1% return on investment;total loss upon
death; blacks recieve a negative return on investment]
Medicare [impossible to sustain]
I'm just skimming the surface of government adventures.
You claim the poverty level dropped "precipitously" after the GSP. You are correct only in households run by a female with no male. In that case it dropped 16% from 1968-2002. Most all other categories it was between 2-5%. This data is only on poverty as defined by income.
Regarding the CBO report that Wes cited; it has been repeatedly pointed out by Media Matters that it measured an incomplete version of the bill, without key cost reducing features, read up.
Now my friends, let me turn your attention away from deficits to a real crisis; the skyrocketing costs of health care. Already, the costs of health care put our businesses at an unbearable disadvantage when having to pay their employees health plans. It is forcing individuals to neglect their own health and avoid doing things like starting a business, moving etc., for fear that they might not be able to get a new policy, thus harming both enterprise and productivity. Meanwhile, costs will continue to soar as long as we have overly beuracratized insurance companies who must look through your medical records every time you go to the doctor (a number of other problems exist as well).
The writing is on the wall, if nothing is done about healthcare, it will wreck this economy. Which is why something most definately will be done about it. The question is, now or later...
gets out of Cuba without Fidel Castro approving and/or editing it. WHO statistics are not credible comparisons. I suggest
doctors/1000 population, CT Scanners/1000, MRI scanners/1000, etc as alternative numbers. Here, Canada is low, US is low.
Cost is high here for two reasons.
1. US has invested more in research than anyone else and delivered more (AIDS drugs; leukemia survivals and cancer survivals generally, polio, and lots more).
2. Insurance companies are middlemen between doctors and patients. They must be paid and Americans want not only contingency medical coverage but maintenance also [physical checkups, dental cleanings, pregnancy, child birth, cosmetic issues and more]. In 1955 when your son broke his arm playing football, you rushed him to your doctor, he set the arm and put it in a cast and that was it. What happens now? Ambulance, emergency room at hospital, pain killing drugs, x-rays, a specialist to set the arm and a cast.
The sad part of the current health discussion is that health care is not being discussed. Insurance is. Insurance is a money maker and our government wants in on the money -- never mind actual health care.
Government management of health care is frightening.
This is exactly the reply I was expecting, that we have no choice but to except spiraling costs, bankruptcies and millions of uninsured because this system encourages R&D. And predictably, these concerns don't carry much weight. First of all, a lot of the basic research is done by the national institutes of health, with drug companies being brought in for the marketing of drugs developed there.
And its certainly true that we invest more in research than anyone else, but that doesn't mean that it is always efficient spending. What we actually have right now is a market overloaded with drugs and treatments, many of which perform the same function. True the U.S. is indeed a leader in R&D, but when Research is profit-oriented its typically focused on treatment over cures, tends to produce "me-too" drugs, and neglects diseases, such as malaria, that wont generate immediate profit.
Government run healthcare, like Government run sewege treatment and a government run military, is a lot less "scary" than trying to run those things privately would be. If the free market were always better, then everything would be run that way.
Insurance companies take money OUT of the healthcare system without adding ANY HEALTHCARE. They are parasitic by definition. THAT is why they are being talked about. Every industrial country in the world has a national healthcare system except the US and NONE of them are in the crisis we are in. NONE of them have 18,000 people a year DIE from lack of access to healthcare. We pay the most for our healthcare and are 37th on the quality list. I dont see the people in France, Canada, Japan, Germany or any of the other industrial countries frightened about their healthcare systems. Then again I doubt they would listen when Rush TOLD them to be scared.
Yeah, wrongo -- kinda like when Bush and Cheney said the Iraqi oil would pay for the war, right?
If private insurance costs X amount per individual, why would a public option cost more per individual?
2. Why do you think costs will be raised?
Wes answered you earlier, "mmfa quoted Diane Sawyer stating that we were promised that Medicare would cost $12.5 billion over the first 25 years...when in fact the cost was over $100 billion...over 8 times the promised cost. And, it spanned several administrations and congresses"
Track record again.
I still remember a supposed peer reveiwed scientific paper that refuted Golbal Warming that he sent me off to read.
His views aline exactly with the Republican noise machine about 9 times out of 10.
Is the medicare of today the same that was created 25 years ago? If not, who modified it and for what purpose?
At any rate, besides doing the leg work for these unregulated corporate frauds masquerading as free marketers in the insurance biz, you totally miss the point of being a member of the American community. You miss out on what it means to give a damn about the health and well-being of your neighbors who work hard, pay their taxes for the privilege of living in America and pay their way and still get shafted because some corporate dipstick views his profit margin and bonuses to be more important than actually providing the services his cancer patients pay for in monthly premiums.
And what is the right proposing? Cutting out health insurance tax incentives for employers so more Americans can be jettisoned into the muck and mire of your free market utopia? Give tax breaks to individuals so they can fork a small a portion of the enormous cost of health insurance to corporate jackylls in an effort to redistribute as much wealth as possible upward?
Your way sucks and you suck for thinking the failures of conservatism will somehow work if we just keep trying the same thing over and over again.
Idiot.