Krugman: Why the Real Story About Obamacare Is Not Being Told

[madokie]

An immense policy success is slipping under the radar.


Paul Krugman proposes an interesting theory in today's column about why the success of Obamacare is a story that is mostly being ignored by the media, and therefore kept from the American public. In fact, he suspects the mainstream news media does not even know how successful the Affordable Care Act is proving to be. Not that there is any excuse for that ignorance. How do they manage to stay so ignorant? Krugman thinks it may be because many of the people who work in media—especially the pundit class—are well enough off that they don't need Obamacare, and these media elites seldom cover poor people or even talk to them much.

So, no excuses really. Why has the media been able to get away with getting the health reform story so wrong?

"Think relentless negativity without accountability," Krugman writes:

The Affordable Care Act has faced nonstop attacks from partisans and right-wing media, with mainstream news also tending to harp on the act’s troubles. Many of the attacks have involved predictions of disaster, none of which have come true. But absence of disaster doesn’t make a compelling headline, and the people who falsely predicted doom just keep coming back with dire new warnings.

http://www.alternet.org/economy/krugman-why-real-story-about-obamacare-not-being-told

[spanone]

1. our media has no interest in facts. media is big business.

profit above all.

[madokie]

2. Our media is mostly controlled by a few rich assholes

I've read several times that somewhere like 95% of what the average person reads in the paper or magazines or sees or hears on the airwaves is brought to us by 5 large corporations. The same corporations that make most of the rich's war toys that they use to control most of the world with. Mind you I haven't put a lot of research in this so I may be wrong but it seems to be pretty close to me

I used the word 'toys' to show my contempt for the rich and what they do to the rest of the world and not as an endorsement for war machines

[spanone]

5. i grew up in the 50's & 60's when the news depts LOST money.

they were what gave the networks a certain amount of integrity.

we had a fairness doctrine. fox news could not exist with a fairness doctrine.

[madokie]

8. So did I and I agree with you when you say that fox noise could not exist with a fairness doctrine

This was brought to us by the neoCONs like most fucked up legislation has been in my lifetime

[spanone]

10. i'm not sure how a democracy exists when the voters...

are not informed of the true choices.

most people are too busy living life to study nuance in politics.

[madokie]

11. So true

I know that life is a lot simpler if we don't pay any attention to politics but thats how we find ourselves in these predicaments. I personally think that election day should be a national holiday and everyone encouraged to get off their ass and vote.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

3. Because politicians affiliated with cirime sydicates that eavesdrop on us are cotrolled by China

N[e]o comment [1010101011001001001100101011010110011001010=further information revealed on pucks, attempting to steal US Military top-secrets will be killed by extraterrestrials immediately=02011020304050030055040e=(xy) times www=epfet[4t40-bo-pbwp3wbp= GNO BIDT!!!]

[frazzled]

4. helping poor people and absence of disaster isn't a story

Not even here on DU. Mention the Affordable Care Act, and the most you will get is some news-of-the-weird counter-story and/or a tenth-grade reply about "corporatism."

It doesn't matter, though; because a decade from now, we'll be seeing stories about improvements in our health system and in people's health; the affects of transportability on our economy and peoples' livelihoods, etc. And some Republican president will bask in the glory of it.

[freshwest]

6. k&r

[Thinkingabout]

7. The Death Panels never was and still is not a part of the ACA.

The relentless lies told by Republicans are proven over and over to be lies. We still have the hard nosed governors holding back on Medicaid expansion but the ACA is working well.

I was just thinking, since Boehner is filing suit against Obama for delaying the employer mandate after the House had sent a bill to the Senate doing the same thing. Now if Boehner is filing against Obama for changing parts of the ACA, then Boehner has to file suit against SC for changing parts of the ACA.

[madokie]

9. bonehead is letting the bottle make his decisions

there should be a law against allowing a person who has a drinking problem be in a position of power, especially in government service whether one is elected or simply hired for the job.

[90-percent]

12. Zombie Lies

&feature=share

I got this Maher vid from a DU post. Sorry to the original poster I can't find the DU link.

Bill makes a lot of excellent points here - where are the death panels?

And the Benghazi scandal has been thoroughly debunked, but based on my Conservative pals on FB, it's alive and well.

"There is no shame in their game."

Bill did a great job with this piece and I'm going to adopt the term ZOMBIE LIES as my own. Or at least shop it around at my internet haunts. Hell, I hope somebodies got a webpage or FB group called Zombie Lies by now!


-90% Jimmy

PS - from Thinkingabout's post above:

"We still have the hard nosed governors holding back on Medicaid expansion" - what these heartless cruel ungenerous creeps are doing to the people in their states is the closet thing to anything resembling a "death panel" in the ACA. Make your own people needlessly suffer just to be a petulant partisan hack. A great example of their willingness to destroy the country just to destroy Obama. Well, they haven't "broken" him yet, have they?

[DeSwiss]

13. Some Zombie Lies started as cuttings.....

- Now growing that should be illegal.....

[Cha]

14. "Think relentless negativity without accountability,".. The US corporate media is a lazy bunch of

screaming hyenas. They would not last in any job where there is accountability. Paul Krugman has it exactly right.

mahalo madokie

[pansypoo53219]

15. their wealth has made them the enemy of democracy. they are torys now.

pandering to the rich + successful.