Jake Tapper, The Washington Post and the mainstream media launders Koch Brothers funded "study"

[Blackjack200]

We actually had a thread about the study itself, commissioned by the Koch Brothers funded Mercatus center. The thread is here: https://forums.anandtech.com/thread...ll-would-save-2t-in-healthcare-costs.2551901/

But that's not what this thread is about. See, after everyone had a good laugh about the well funded idiots over at Mercatus stepping on garden rakes and falling down manholes, they got Very Mad and started firing emails out to their media contacts, insisting that the $2T savings everyone was talking about was "out of context" and that the media was missing "the real story".
https://twitter.com/gunnelswarren/status/1031623917457367040
https://twitter.com/gunnelswarren/status/1031614202711105536

(note that these tweets are actually a response to the Bernie Sanders Tweet linked below, but they illustrate this part of the story)

A bunch of the mainstream media, mostly notably Jake Tapper, bought their claims hook line and sinker, posted articles and videos basically calling Bernie Sanders a liar, and then cross-referenced each other to support their claims, without ever disclosing that they were just parroting what they were told to say by the study's authors.
https://twitter.com/sensanders/status/1031583467316936704

Left Twitter, including some prominent accounts, went absolutely bonkers.
https://twitter.com/ryanlcooper/status/1031920842886852608
http://www.theweek.com/articles/791236/fact-checkers-have-medicareforall-problem

Now, some mainstream media is finally starting to notice, and is pushing back on these assholes.
http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-blahous-sanders-20180822-story.html
https://twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/1032248075170062338

Wow. Where to begin? First, we have billionaires funding studies that are designed to sew public distrust of universal health care by scaring people. Then you have the media uncritically parroting what those billionaire think tanks are telling them to say. Then you have that same media using their "Fact Check" apparatus to falsely accuse Senator Sanders and his supporters of lying, an absolutely absurd claim. At this point, the members of the media that laundered these claims have only offered minor or incomplete corrections. None of them have come clean about getting their talking points from Mercatus, none of them have apologized. Why should we believe anything Tapper, The Post, or the AP says until they do so?

This is our democracy folks.

 

[woolfe9998]

I don't often agree with you, but this thread shouldn't have been overlooked. This is indeed exactly what happened here. When I Googled the issue earlier today in relation to the new thread on this topic, the first thing I came across was a CNN piece uncritically reporting the Koch Bros. study and providing no context whatsoever. Just pitching it as $32 trillion in new costs with no offsets. So much for the "liberal media."

Pathetic.

 

[ivwshane]

I rarely watch cnn and I did not see any of this on MSNBC or in any of my feeds.

Are you sure this was as wide spread as you think?


That being said, the fact checking website should be ashamed and should retract their claims.

 

[senseamp]

Over time, enough people will get hit with real world medical bills so high that no amount of Republican bullshit about how our health care system is so great is going to wash.

 

[sandorski]

Big Media i as problematic as Big Banks.

 

[cytg111]

The free press is dying all on its own. Real news just doesnt pay...

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2...worldwide-we-might-be-entering-a-new-dark-age

 

[dank69]

I rarely watch cnn and I did not see any of this on MSNBC or in any of my feeds.

Are you sure this was as wide spread as you think?


That being said, the fact checking website should be ashamed and should retract their claims.

I saw the story all over for a day or two before the facts came out.

 

[Blackjack200]

I don't often agree with you, but this thread shouldn't have been overlooked. This is indeed exactly what happened here. When I Googled the issue earlier today in relation to the new thread on this topic, the first thing I came across was a CNN piece uncritically reporting the Koch Bros. study and providing no context whatsoever. Just pitching it as $32 trillion in new costs with no offsets. So much for the "liberal media."

Pathetic.

Weird that Jake Tapper is also the one that just hounded AOC about how we should pay for Medicare For All. It's like he has a fetish for seeing people suffer and die from treatable conditions.

 

[Bitek]

Weird that Jake Tapper is also the one that just hounded AOC about how we should pay for Medicare For All. It's like he has a fetish for seeing people suffer and die from treatable conditions.

That segment with AOC in the other thread seems linked to me.

To me it seems like the lazy journalism that fed Butter Mails. Quality journalism should involve aquanting oneself with the facts, understand the arguments, and then ask the tough, educated questions.

It shouldn't be just gotcha journalism, playing dumb or for clicks.


That being said, this is just a taste of the opposition MFA will face. The proponents messaging need to be razor sharp.
As AOC showed in that segment, it wasn't. Not even close.

This policy is going nowhere unless progressives impressively improve their game.

 

[fskimospy]

That segment with AOC in the other thread seems linked to me.

To me it seems like the lazy journalism that fed Butter Mails. Quality journalism should involve aquanting oneself with the facts, understand the arguments, and then ask the tough, educated questions.

It shouldn't be just gotcha journalism, playing dumb or for clicks.


That being said, this is just a taste of the opposition MFA will face. The proponents messaging need to be razor sharp.
As AOC showed in that segment, it wasn't. Not even close.

This policy is going nowhere unless progressives impressively improve their game.

This is very true. Frankly I think Democrats should just take a page from the Republican playbook at this point and lie about it. Just say Medicare for all will generate so much additional revenue through healthier people that it will pay for itself.

 

[K1052]

This is very true. Frankly I think Democrats should just take a page from the Republican playbook at this point and lie about it. Just say Medicare for all will generate so much additional revenue through healthier people that it will pay for itself.

MFA will take us to 5% GDP growth, lengthen your penis by 3 inches, and make you a millionaire!

(am I doing this right?)

 

[Blackjack200]

This is very true. Frankly I think Democrats should just take a page from the Republican playbook at this point and lie about it. Just say Medicare for all will generate so much additional revenue through healthier people that it will pay for itself.

I think the lesson from Trump's campaign is not so much to lie, but that policy details are not important when selling a message to voters.

She could just say that the program will be paid for with government revenues like any other program, and that what's important to Americans is getting better health care for less money, not line items on the budget.

 

[fskimospy]

I think the lesson from Trump's campaign is not so much to lie, but that policy details are not important when selling a message to voters.

She could just say that the program will be paid for with government revenues like any other program, and that what's important to Americans is getting better health care for less money, not line items on the budget.

Yes, Democrats need to stop playing the game where they are the only ones that need to explain how their policies are fiscally responsible.

There's this bizarre convention in the US where Republicans are still somehow viewed as being the fiscally responsible party despite proving exactly the opposite for nearly four decades. We need to stop indulging it.

 

[woolfe9998]

Yes, Democrats need to stop playing the game where they are the only ones that need to explain how their policies are fiscally responsible.

There's this bizarre convention in the US where Republicans are still somehow viewed as being the fiscally responsible party despite proving exactly the opposite for nearly four decades. We need to stop indulging it.

The only problem here is that while voter's eyes will glaze over if you get too wonkish, they will get sticker shock when the opposition proffers a huge number like this. It's tempting to ignore it but when the big number is repeated over and over again then someone needs to explain why it's wrong before it becomes the de facto "truth" of the matter. If this explanation is not handled well then it does nothing to counter the perception brought on by the huge number. This is one reason why healthcare policy has always been a tough sell.

So far neither AOC nor Sanders has been able to do this.

 

[fskimospy]

The only problem here is that while voter's eyes will glaze over if you get too wonkish, they will get sticker shock when the opposition proffers a huge number like this. It's tempting to ignore it but when the big number is repeated over and over again then someone needs to explain why it's wrong before it becomes the de facto "truth" of the matter. If this explanation is not handled well then it does nothing to counter the perception brought on by the huge number. This is one reason why healthcare policy has always been a tough sell.

So far neither AOC nor Sanders has been able to do this.

The answer to that should simply be 'as things are set up NOW we will be spending more than $40 trillion. This saves money'. That's it.

 

[Commodus]

This is why I always laugh when Trump cheerleaders insist that CNN, WaPo and other fairly centrist outlets are liberal-biased propaganda machines. If anything, the problem is that they don't always question right-wing spin as much as they should. Hell, CNN even hired Corey Lewandowski while he was still receiving severance pay from the Trump campaign, and was under an NDA that didn't allow him to say anything negative about Trump.

Good journalism never simply accepts something at face value. It questions, it challenges, it tests a claim until it's reasonably certain. If you don't do those things, you risk sliding into the depravity of Fox News, which merely serves as a mouthpiece for Trump and the Republicans.