WHAT'S IN THE GOP'S MYSTERIOUS HEALTH CARE BILL? 6/15/2017 Senate Republicans keep their plan to repeal and replace Obamacare shrouded in secrecy, drawing outrage from Democrats.
QUIT GIVING TRUMP AMMUNITION, NEWS MEDIA 5/9/2017 Even though President Trump unfairly criticizes the news media, Hasan Minhaj argues that network anchors' snarky attitudes aren't helping.
Write up: ‘Hosting a CNN Roast Isn’t Helping Your Cause’: The Daily Show Mocks Jake Tapper
On last night’s Daily Show, senior media analyst Hasan Minhaj called out the media for being too snarky when talking about President Donald Trump. “Media, Trump is out to get you, and he accuses you of being biased,” Minhaj began. “And we all want to be on your side but you give him too much ammunition.” “You guys know what snark is, right? It’s like sarcasm for people with masters degrees. And snark is driving a wedge between the media and its claim of objectivity,” he continued. “The news is best when it’s serious,” Minhaj said. “Take Jake Tapper. You guys know Jake Tapper, right? Right? My main man JT is CNN’s diversity hire, because he’s the only guy who’s not a silver fox on CNN. This guy knows how to be serious. Just look at him stand up to the wicked witch of the wild West Wing, Kellyanne Conway.” He then pointed to a discussion from December of last year during which Tapper pressed Conway on whether Trump’s use of Twitter was Presidential behavior, and continued to press her, even when she attempted to skirt the issue by invoking Bill Clinton.
“That’s how you do it. Stay in the pocket and give her hell, JT,” Minhaj said. “Jake Tapper’s at his best when he’s got those wrinkles in his forehead… When he looks like he’s spent three hours looking for lightbulbs at Home Depot… That’s when he’s coming with the facts, which destroys Trump’s argument.” Minhaj then pivoted: “But then, he flushes it all away with the Tapper ‘tude!” He followed that with a montage of said Tapper ‘tude moments which he acknowledges are funny. “He’s got comic chops, timing. The only problem is, if you’re trying to seem objective, then hosting a CNN roast isn’t helping your cause. And what’s worse, it makes it look like you’re doing exactly what Trump accuses the media of: Being biased.”
The House Passed A Health Care Bill That Will Kill People. These Media Figures Called It A Victory.
4. Dana Bash
DANA BASH: This is something we should take a note of and say this is particularly since they were in such dire straits they had to pull the bill they thought Obamacare would be the law of the land for so long after they really messed this up a little more than a month ago. Now they have some victory to declare.
5. Jim Acosta
JIM ACOSTA: You can see they're making preparations right now for this victory lap that President Trump and House Republicans are going to be taking here in the Rose Garden. Over my shoulder you can see members of the House Republican caucus are making their way to stand behind the podium there. Stand behind the president as he declares victory here after the house passed the repeal and replace law to take out Obamacare.
DAVID CHALIAN: I don't think we can overstate what a big, short-term, immediate win this is for the president.
77. Matt Schlapp
MATT SCHLAPP: My view is you can’t swerve around the idea that this is a victory for President Trump.
ANDREA MITCHELL: Look this is a victory.
WOLF BLITZER: A big, big win for the Republicans and the House of Representatives.
(MSNBC)
Congratulations! You win! Many people will die! Woohoo! (the media just sounds crazy when you put it in context);
As Politifact notes...
Politifact: A literature review
We found at least seven academic papers that detected a link between securing health insurance and a decline in mortality. In general, these papers present a stronger consensus that having insurance saves lives.
• In 2002, a panel of more than a dozen medical specialists convened by the federally chartered Institute of Medicine estimated that 18,000 Americans had died in 2000 because they were uninsured. In January 2008, Stan Dorn, a senior research associate at the Urban Institute, published a paper that sought to update the IOM study with newer data. Replicating the study’s methodology, Dorn concluded that the figure should be increased to 22,000.
• A 2009 American Journal of Public Health study concluded that a lack of health insurance "is associated with as many as 44,789 deaths in the United States, more than those caused by kidney disease."
• Three studies looked at state-level expansions of Medicaid and in each case found "significant" improvements in mortality after such expansions of coverage. These include a 2012 New England Journal of Medicine study of New York, Maine, and Arizona by Harvard researchers, and a 2014 study of Massachusetts by researchers from Harvard and the Urban Institute.
• A 2014 study published by the health policy publication Health Affairs looked at states that, at the time, had declined to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. It estimated that the 25 states studied would have collectively avoided between 7,000 and 17,000 deaths.
• A 2014 study in the Journal of Clinical Oncology found improved survival rates for young adults with cancer after securing insurance under the Affordable Care Act.
• A 2017 study in the journal Medical Care looked at a provision of the Affordable Care Act that allows young adults to be covered under a parent’s policy. The study found a decline in mortality among this population from diseases amenable to preventive treatment. (Mortality from trauma, such as car accidents, saw no decrease, as would be expected.)
This summation of what seems to be going on, from Media Matters, shows how media will often help the GOP push its agenda while acting like it's being "fair and balanced" while they ignore important facts;
1. Television news’ lack of coverage would help the Republican Party move the legislative process forward on this bill without a public debate that would highlight the real human cost of such legislation. Media Mattersresearch also found that in addition to television channels falling flat, print media did not fair much better either on covering the the Senate health care bill.
2. The GOP is counting on media’s silence and right-wing media myths to push a train wreck of a health care bill that would strip health care from tens of millions to slash taxes for the wealthiest Americans. Right-wing media have repeatedly assisted the GOP with claims that ACA is in a “death spiral” and have attempted to discredit the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office after its report found that up to 24 million people would lose health insurance under the AHCA. Right-wing media have even tried to pacify millions of Americans that would lose access to insurance by absurdly telling them to just go to the emergency room. As Talk Poverty’s Jeremy Slevin pointed out, “It is the responsibility of the press to draw out the contents of the Senate’s health care bill—before it is too late.”
Now for some news illustrating media behavior in context of facts...
Two days in a row, CNN’s Chris Cuomo uses debunked myths to blame Democrats for GOP health care failures
On the June 21 edition of CNN's New Day, host Chris Cuomo claimed that Democrats “deserve their own blame for not fixing the ACA and its obvious problems.” In reality, Democrats did attempt to fix problems with the Affordable Care Act (ACA) but were repeatedly rebuffed by their Republican counterparts in Congress.
The day before, on the June 20 edition of New Day, Cuomo parroted another conservative media talking point about the ACA when he took House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) out of context to imply the legislative process around the ACA was not transparent, saying “Republicans were rightly upset” that Pelosi said, “We've got to pass it, then they can read it.” In fact, the debate over the ACA was “one of the most transparent” in recent history, as Congress debated the legislation for over a year before it was signed into law. In addition, the full context of Pelosi’s now notorious speech reveals that her comment was about the need to have conversations about the substance of the ACA outside of the “fog of the controversy,” because negative talking points dominated the discussions of the law.
While Cuomo did qualify his comments about the ACA legislative process by conceding that the GOP health care bill is “unprecedented in its secrecy,” his repetition of conservative media talking points in an effort to present both sides serve to advance debunked right-wing media myths and unfairly blame the Obama administration for GOP failures. From the June 21 edition of CNN’s New Day:
This view, interestingly enough, is debunked by Shep...
Shep Smith debunks false right-wing narrative that Republican secrecy on health care is the same as the Democrats' Smith: “Republicans accused Democrats of doing this -- which they didn’t”
SHEPARD SMITH: Democrats are using new tactics to try to slow down the Republican push to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare. It comes as the Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says, the Senate could vote on the health care reform next week before the July 4th recess. Remember, nobody knows, except for 12 men who are working on this behind closed doors, what's in this bill. No one will see it, at least until the Congressional Budget Office takes a look at it and then supposedly they'll vote within a day. Democrats ramped up their resistance yesterday, giving long speeches and accusing Republicans of trying to ram through a bill. Now they're using a rule to limit committee hearings. Will there be a hearing? It sounds like if so, it'll be about that long. Mike Emanuel on Capitol Hill. Mike, Republicans accused Democrats of doing this -- which they didn't -- back during Obamacare. They had multiple hearings on this. And now, Republicans are doing what they accused the Dems of doing.
Watch video here.
The following study shows a bias of opinion (the ones most likely to be affected by the bill are not there);
Media follow GOP's lead and host mainly white men to discuss Republican health care bill
Shortly after the House of Representatives passed its version of the American Health Care Act (AHCA), Senate Republicans put together a working group to draft their own version of the legislation. The working group was roundly criticized for its lack of diversity. For instance, CNN’s Erin Burnett took issue with the all-male group, asking, “What can they realistically bring to the table when the conversation turns to, let’s just say, childbirth, maternity leave, ovarian cancer or breast cancer?” Likewise, Roll Call’s Patricia Murphy wrotethat adding diverse voices to the group would allow people to “bring their own personal experiences to the debate,” noting that African-Americans have “a higher incidence of chronic disease” and are “more likely to require ongoing medical interventions over the course of their lives.”
Unfortunately, if people are hoping to hear a diverse group of people discussing the health care bill, media are of little help. A Media Matters analysis found that the people hosted on television to discuss the bill were disproportionately white men. Key findings include:
- Male guest appearances outnumbered female guest appearances 2-to-1 on prime-time cable news, broadcast morning and nightly news shows, and Sunday morning political shows during discussions of the Republican health care bill.
- Over 87 percent of appearances on prime-time cable news, broadcast morning and nightly news shows, and Sunday morning political shows during discussions of the Republican health care bill were made by white guests.
Race
Of the 448 guest appearances* on prime-time cable news, broadcast morning and nightly news shows, and Sunday morning political shows, 392 appearances, or over 87 percent, were made by white guests.
During Fox News and CNN’s prime-time coverage of the health care bill, white guests made up over 90 percent of total guest appearances:
- Fox News hosted 77 guests during discussions of the bill. Of those guest appearances, 75, or over 97 percent, were made by white guests. Only two appearances were made by black guests, and there were no appearances made by Asian or Hispanic guests.
- CNN hosted 120 guests during discussions of the bill. Of those guest appearances, 108, or 90 percent, were made by white guests. Only seven appearances, or 6 percent, were made by black guests, three appearances by Asian guests, and two appearances by Hispanic guests.
- MSNBC hosted 134 guest during discussions of the bill. Of those guest appearances, 108, or over 80 percent, were made by white guests. Eighteen appearances, or about 13 percent, were made by black guests, four, or nearly 3 percent, by Asian guests, and four appearances by Hispanic guests.
CBS hosted only white guests to discuss the bill during its morning and nightly news shows:
Read more of this study here.
This help provided to the GOP isn't restricted to TV either (The Australian, Rupert Murdoch, himself owns a ton of the media, which will often help each other, and other GOP owners don't seem to be identified much but are clearly there)...
Newspapers buried reports on health care, while TV news missed the Senate’s back room dealmaking
I would like to point out that the Media (I keep track of cable news channels MSNBC, CNN & Fox News) will OFTEN ignore important ideas or talking points UNLESS the Democrats bring it out in some way. Obama used to do that, forcing the media to cover issues that it normally wouldn't given it's GOP patronage, simply because he was President.
Basically, I think, the media is proud of it's status as PR officers as Orwell explained;
So they try and help each side, when they can, to get along, when not overruled by the GOP masters or if they can't get it passed the public any longer without it becoming obvious that a media coverup is in progress (I've seen this many times, especially on CNN. Fox doesn't even hide it. NBC doesn't really try either. First NBC fired Phil Donahue for being anti iraq war under Cheney - which is an ongoing media coverup as outlined here Corporate Media's Iraq War Coverup: Incontrovertible Proof Of Network News & The Beltway Media Covering Facts About The Iraq War For Their GOP Masters - and now that there is a new GOP president so NBC hired Greta and Megyn Kelly, people who have attacked the left and the country with lies for years. Just that should be sufficient to blow the lid off of something majorly wrong with corporate media, imo).
On June 16, Vox asked eight Republican senators to explain their party’s prospective bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA). But the senators couldn’t “answer simple and critical questions” on their own bill. Vox Senior Editor Sarah Kliff pointed out on June 15 that “the Senate is running a remarkably closed process” to hide the bill; it has not released a draft to the public, has held no committee hearings, and has had no speeches “defending the policy provisions of the bill” on the Senate floor. The New York Times reported, also on June 15, that the “remarkable” secrecy around the bill has raised alarm with senators in both parties:
“They’re ashamed of the bill,” the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, said. “If they liked the bill, they’d have brass bands marching down the middle of small-town America saying what a great bill it is. But they know it isn’t.”[...]Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, offered a hint of the same frustration felt by Democrats seeking more information about the bill.“I come from a manufacturing background,” Mr. Johnson said. “I’ve solved a lot of problems. It starts with information. Seems like around here, the last step is getting information, which doesn’t seem to be necessarily the most effective process.”
The day Vox and the Times reported on the GOP senators’ unprecedented secrecy surrounding the bill, Media Matters released a report documenting the insufficient amount of weekday coverage on broadcast and cable news dedicated to the Senate health care bill from June 1 to June 14. Media Matters reported that the big three broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) dedicated a fraction of their airtime -- roughly three minutes across all three networks -- to the Senate deliberations out of 15 total hours of scheduled weekday programming. The performance of cable news channels was not much better, as MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News provided just under two combined hours of coverage to the Senate bill out of 150 hours of scheduled weekday programming.
I would like to point out that the Media (I keep track of cable news channels MSNBC, CNN & Fox News) will OFTEN ignore important ideas or talking points UNLESS the Democrats bring it out in some way. Obama used to do that, forcing the media to cover issues that it normally wouldn't given it's GOP patronage, simply because he was President.
Basically, I think, the media is proud of it's status as PR officers as Orwell explained;
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