A high school classmate (great guy by the way) with whom I reconnected via facebook wrote:
[I am] shocked that so few people have any real understanding of the healthcare bill other than what they get from the media. The Bill does the following: (1) expands healthcare to 30 + million uninsured Americans (2) makes healthcare more affordable to everyone (3) holds insurance companies more accountable (4) and will help reduce the deficit by over $100 billion over the next 10 years.
We can debate the validity of all or some of these points.* But what most got my attention was:
So few people have any understanding other than what they get from the media.
Another classmate agreed and wrote “negative media played a huge role in Americans not being truly informed”. This echoes a common refrain I have heard during the last several months. “You do not really understand what is going on. You oppose what the Obama administration proposes because you have been misinformed. It is the media that has misinformed you”. President Obama has also played this card.
It is insulting and incoherent.
Which media exactly? NPR? CBS? NBC? ABC? CNN? MSNBC? The New York Times? The Washington Post? Time magazine? Newsweek? Are we seriously being asked to believe that the media was primarily negative with regard to ObamaCare?
Oh. Perhaps Fox? Rush Limbaugh? Wall Street Journal? National Review? Let us assume just for the sake of argument that these examples of the media indeed misunderstood and misrepresented ObamaCare. Are we seriously being asked to believe that these few examples were able to turn a majority of Americans against ObamaCare despite the best efforts of all the positive media? Are we seriously being asked to believe that President Obama the greatest orator since Cicero could not garner the support of even the majority of Americans who voted for him in the first place?
Or were we supposed to believe whatever President Obama and the leaders of Congress tell us? Were we supposed to get our information from Speker Pelosi who said we need to pass this legislation so we can find out what is in it?
I am willing to believe that some of the negative media did provide misinformation. But am I supposed to believe that the editors and writers at Wall Street Journal and National Review are liars or idiots or both?
I anticipate a possible counterargument. “No no no Fox and Rush and Wall Street Journal and so on have a much larger voice than you realize”. Really? Why? How is it that the majority of Americans did not listen to misinformation from these negative media when they were voting for President Obama but now that he is in office they do? What changed?
Perhaps it all comes down to “the majority of Americans are so stupid they will fall for misinformation that comes from this tiny handful of negative media outlets”. Which still does not make much sense.
Please spare us the tired cliche that the only reason people oppose the Obama agenda is because they have been duped by negative propaganda. It is (but not intended to be) insulting. And more importantly it is illogical. When you stop and think about it.
*Addendum (03/24/2010) – Most of the talking points do not bear scrutiny. Jane Hamsher published a piece at the Huffington Post entitled “Fact Sheet: The Truth About the Health Care Bill”. Read the whole thing. She looked at the bill and produced a list of 18 oft stated myths concerning the bill.
